I have 1995 Aerostar Van, it has a short circuit that blows Fuse #6 and appears to affect Front and Back dome light, radio, and speedometer/odometer.

How do I find this?

 

There may be no easy way...you will have to follow the wire on the load side of the fuse (and any other wires attached to it) to see if there are any chafing of the insulation. Look in areas where it has to pass by metal parts or fit through a hole in a metal panel.

 

Disconnect each item one at a time and replace the fuse. When the fuse quits blowwing you found the area to look closer at the wiring. Don't forget the step well lamps are on fuse 6. What about the speedo doesn't work?

Doug

 

If you wire a light bulb to where the fuse goes, when you find the short, the bulb will go out. the bulb will glow brightly while the short exists. this will save you $400.00 in fuses.

Ken

 

In my experience, shorts to ground are most often caused by a unit powered by the particular circuit (fuse). Much more so than shorts in the wiring itself.

Since the radio is effected, the first question it "Is it an aftermarket radio"? If so, check the wiring to and around the radio. Pinched wires or sloppy installation is a very common problem with aftermarket sound systems (or any other add ons, like alarm systems, remote start, etc). Aftermarket items are always the first suspect when fuses blow repeatedly.
Cigarette lighter elements or foreign objects in the sockets are a close second if they are on the effected circuit. (Why do small children equate lighter sockets with coin slots?)
Just a thought: You mention the dome light. I recall seeing a lot of shorts in early\mid-90's Ford dome lights that had built in map lights. If your Aero has a front dome light with switches for map lighting, remove and disconnect it. See if that helps.

If the radio is OEM, and\or the wiring to any aftermarket addons checks out good, check the owners manual diagram and see what items are supplied power through Fuse #6.

Using the "light bulb across the fuse socket" trick that ken1mod mentioned, remove and disconnect each component until the short disappears.
Use an #1156, or either half of an #1157 bulb. (both are very common tail light\turn signal bulbs) A low current bulb, like a #194 (dash lights) can light up due to normal current draw in the circuit and send you chasing your tail. Many standard 12 volt test lights won't work well either. The few mils of current from the PCM or radio memory circuit will make them light.
If you disconnect everything on that circuit and still have a short, it's time to seek help.

 

do your sunvisors have lights on them? in the vanity mirrors?

if so, check the wire that runs thru the sun visor bracket to power the lights.

i had this exact same problem in my aero, and this was the culprit.

 

Ok, here is the rest of the story in case anyone is following it. Before I had the vehicle the previous owner had installed a differnt radio and some souped up sound system components in the back. Prior to selling it to me, the amp and diskchanger was removed and the wires runnign to them were capped (sort of). The positive wire that was connected to the battery and the negative that was wired directly to the floor were capped, but the "blue" wire was just wrapped around them.

When I pulled the radio, there was a pair of speakers wired but the wires were bare and no wire nuts on them. I capped these off. However the "blue wire" splice bothered me. Since I am not going to use any other stereo equipment in the back I tried to pull the blue wire out. It relatively easily snapped. I clipped it off near the splice and capped it off.

So far, this seems to have fixed the problem.

We shall see.