Help needed diagnosing sidelight short circuit

Help !

My 300 Tdi Disco has developed a fuse blowing short circuit on the N/S.

It has tail lights/indicators both in the bumper and rear light cluster.

At the weekend I did each of the following steps individually then put a new fuse in, then switched the side lights on :

• Disconnected all sidelight bulbs – fuse blew.
• Disconnected the rear bumper wiring loom from main loom – fuse blew.
• Removed all the towing electrics from the loom in O/S which had been scotch blocked on rather than plugged in – Fuse still blew.
• Checked as many points where harness when through metalwork as I could find – blew another fuse !
• Removed and disconnected rear light unit from vehicle – still popped a fuse!

The motor is a very tidy 3 door M reg with very little welding done to it (my brother has owned and run it for the last 5 years before passing it onto my wife in October).

Also while investigating around the front wiring harness I found this strange connector on the N/S headlight loom, can anyone tell me what it is for ? (possibly the LR / Diagnostics plug)

I sprayed it with WD40 just in case but, pop, blew another fuse.

Don't help I know but my guess is youv got water on electrics frm all this rain weve had.
Same thimg happens on my classic with indicators, fine in the dry, mild rain bit soon as it rains heavy like latley, bam fuse blows!!!
Like you iv tried everything, and I mean everything but stil cnt find the shaggin problem!!

Fun n game of owning a landy ay!

The socket is for head-lamp levelling system when fitted, there will be one behind each head lamp.
As for your short live to earth best of luck finding that, but have a look at the bulb holders and any exposed wiring.

Ah headlamps levelling. OK can ignore that as it is a low spec model and does not have them.

As for the blessed short, did did warn me it at sidelight fuses. Certainly this current problem has occurred since Christmas!

Another problem I have is that the rear demister has ceased working too. The fuses in this instance are OK. Searching various forums point at an MCU unit that hopefully needs resetting. But ran out of time. And central locking remote fobs. Grrr, I have been through the programming sequence numerous times but the alarm refuses to go I to learn more.

God bless my 80

Arghhh, OK pulled rear door trim off and inspected all the wiring, nothing suspicious.

Then though, hmm rear interior light needs changing so I removed that from the pilar on o/s and removed the dud bulb. popped a fuse in for a test and bu##er me if all the lights worked !!

Who would have thought some brummie muppet would have wired the rear door interior light to the n/s loom FFS !!