OK, no one else wants to touch this so I'll give it a shot. This is a fairly simple circuit in theory. The juice runs from the potentiometer portion of the switch through the #6 fuse, then to the interior and dash lights, and then to ground. The light bulbs supply the resistance to slow the flow of the electrical juice. When the juice flows too fast, the fuse blows to keep the wiring from melting. The potentiometer portion getting very hot is another sign that the juice is flowing too fast.:flame:
I can see that this is getting way too complicated to I'll cut to the fix. You have a short somewhere between the fuse block and the lights. So what lights could this be? Any light that dimmed from the potentiometer control on the headlight switch. Dash illumination, PRNDL illumination, transfer control lever illumination, radio ill., different switch ill. Somewhere along the wiring to these lights, a wire is damaged letting juice flow directly to ground. Another slight possibility is that a bulb shorted within itself letting the juice flow past the resistant element.
So, if this doesn't give you any other ideas to what could be screwed up, maybe you could try this. Have the potentiometer rotated all the way to off, put in a new fuse and very slowly (at night), turn the potentiometer up just a little bit to make the lights glow enough to just see them. If you can do this without blowing the fuse already, try to see if one of the things that should be lit is not lit. If you are lucky enough to make this work, then check out that light bulb and circuit (wires) to the bulb. WARNING: only use high quality fuses - I used cheepo fuses one time that did not blow when it should have and melted out a wire harness. Oh, that reminds me: Another thing to check is for melted wires under the dash.
