Tail light fuse blowing on ignition and burned ignition switch plug

They are not.  They have not since I've had it.  I just ordered some LED bulbs to replace all of the instrument lights, so we will see what happens there.  All of the center ones (turn signals, neutral, oil pressure, hight beam, etc) are working fine.

Those 2 gauge lights run off of the brown/white wire which is part of the circuit you cut from the splice.
That brown/white wire circuit isn't receiving power right now.

I have a feeling you can disconnect the two turn signal bullet connectors for the blue wires(green circles) which tie into the brown/white wire.
These are the bullet connectors you disconnected to get the open reading.
Once disconnected, you can tie in the brown/white wire back to the red/blue splice without blowing the fuse.
You don't need those blue wires for the turn signals to work.
At that point the gauge lights should work again.

Otherwise, to get the dash lights to work you will have to cut the brown/white wires from the two gauge lights(at the red Xs on the image below).
To the brown/white wires going to the dash lights you will run new wires(pink lines) that tie into the red/blue splice. 
This will bypass the short and power your gauge lights.



 

Yeah, that makes sense.  Thanks for the idea.  I should be able to get back to it this weekend.  Your help is much appreciated.