After many, many hours! I believe I've found the culprit!!! For the record it took me a while to figure out how to read a couple of those diagrams and find the location for some of these sensors, that being said. I've gone through almost a dozen 7.5A fuses and after unplugging the brake light failure senor, the dash stays alive, vehicle shifts and drives fine (only moved around the driveway) I stopped timing for the fuse to blow after 3 minutes. And after turning the vehicle back on after a 10 minute wait period just to be safe it is intact the brake light failure sensor!!

I cannot express my gratitude for the knowledge you have provided to me and the hundreds of dollars you saved me being able to do this myself!!!!!!!!! Thank you so very much!

 

Thanks for posting the results and that you figured out the culprit.

Not sure what a new one costs, but you can probably get one at a junkyard if you are on a tight budget. This may be the first time I've read that the sensor caused the fuse to blow.

You may want to look at the sensor or open it up to see if you have water getting into there and causing corrosion. Look around the trunk or under the spare tire if you are somehow leaking water into the trunk. If not, then chalk it up to some random flaw on the circuit board causing it to short out.