Good Morning
Your issues with your trooper has made interesting reading. I'm not sure I am getting how you are looking for the short. This is the way I would do it. Take a test light, you know the unit has a alligator clip on one end of the wire and a probe with a lite on the other end, used for finding power thru the wire of a circuit. I take the negative cable off the battery and hook the alligator clip to it, then take the probe end and set it on the top of the negative post. Make sure all the doors are shut remove any lite under the hood. If current is moving because of a short, the lite will come on. Start removing fuses one at a time when you pull a fuse and the lite goes out you have found the circuit. I normally get a friend to help out with this process. It works really well. A dvom works the same way, attach one end of the meter to the negative cable and the other to the negative post and you will get a reading thru the meter, must be switched to the d.c. volt side.
Good Luck
Coopter Steve