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It was the ECM. Reflow of the solder connections did not help. Likely an output device failure.
Found the correct ECM about a week ago. Installed it and has not missed a beat since. Kept the meter in line with ckt #925 and no more intermittent current loss.
To sum up, this case was not a short, rather it was a loss of the current sink through the ECM. I do not know why the ECM trouble code protocol would report this as P1747 , but it is what it is. Best troubleshooting tool was the advice here and thanks to all. Best place to measure was ckt #925 as described in my previous post. Meter will be coming out today and repinning C172 back to the original configuration. No wires were harmed!
Thank you for the in-depth detail of your diagnostics. It has given me a distinct path of things to do and and what to look for. I have a 2000 f150 4.6 l with the intermittent p1747 that became a constant p1747 should be easier for me to go through your test procedures and report back as soon as I can.