I am posting this here because nothing else makes sense

The 3A fuse should be the one at one end of the panel. It should have a tan coming in one end and several orange on the other end

the orange wires feed off to all the instrument dimmer controlled lamps, radio, cluster, heater, shifter quadrant, etc.

If part of the harness has suffered some sort of short, it is VERY common for two wires to melt insulation inside the harness and weld wires together.