Always-hot electrical circuit issues. Fuse box damaged? (1 Viewer)

[DLeggett]

Hello everyone!

Hoping someone here has been down this road before. My 2003 GX 470 is dealing with some electrical issues:

• VSC TRAC and VSC OFF lights on the dash
• Radio and dome lights completely dead
• Power mirrors not working
• Key fob no longer reliably locks/unlocks
• AC memory and trip odometer reset every time the car is turned off

The previous owner of this vehicle removed the running boards in a manner that caused the circuit to short, repeatedly blowing the fuses. I was stupid and put a bigger fuse (15A instead of 10A) which solved the problem for about 10 minutes and then everything above stopped working.

I’ve since done a ton of troubleshooting:

• Confirmed that the DOME, ECU-B NO.1 & 2, and RADIO NO.1 circuits aren’t getting power at the fuse box, even though the fuses themselves test fine.
• I can restore power and function by jumping from another circuit using a fuse tap, almost everything came back to life but I don't think I can trust it to stay connected while I drive.

At this point, I’m suspecting a failure in the box itself or possibly an upstream issue in the wiring harness.

Has anyone had experience with this or something similar? Would you consider this DIY-able? How much is it gonna cost at a shop?

Thanks in advance.

The original culprit.

My fuse tap which fixes the issues.