The light is starting to come on . but dimly.
Since you can't remove the items all fed by that fuse,there is possibly an alternative and that would be to splice a 20 amp fuse into the feed for the supplied items and maybe you might get lucky if one of them blows only their individual fuse. It's a bit of work .but it would rule out the various sensors and items if done maybe two at a time. If only the 30 amp fuse still blows you will know it's not one of the things you provided with a separate fuse.
What do you think?

 

Fix the cracked hoses. I bet it makes a difference. As for testing the sensors: look for Youtubes on" Testing a _______". Richpin, Ericthecarguy, ScottyKilmer and a few more do a great job explaining thes things.


Hanky's idea of splicing a lower amp fuse in for various circuits makes sense to me. I would look what the typical amperage would be for individual circuits. 20 amp might not be sensitive enough. It's a process of elimination.

 

I would hope that if the problem is blowing a 30 amp fuse a 20 should certainly be sensitive enough to blow before the 30.
It's a lot of work to do this, but with limited equipment to work with maybe someone can come up with a shorter procedure without so much work.

 

After trying to figure out which wire goes where and anything else I could do, I have decided to leave an automatically resetting circuit breaker in place for now and try to drive the car moderately. We've been driving it for a week this way with no problems. If the breaker trips the car can be restarted within 30 seconds. This is no longer an open road vehicle so it seems to be a workable solution for now. Should the problem worsen the culprit might become more readily noticable.

I hope.

 

As you know two and a half heads are better than one and maybe I can provide the half head.
Since you state the problem occurs on hard acceleration, just what takes place on hard acceleration?
The engine torques and moves. Usually it lifts up in the front. Could you try stepping on the gas in drive with the foot brake applied and see if you can create the problem of making the fuse blow? If so, all you need to do after that is watch what wiring moves /gets close to possibly something hot and you might be able to create the problem with the vehicle in park idling. That might get you even closer to the problem, if, that is what might be happening. It might be worth a shot , try it and let us know if it helped .

 

The alternator failed yesterday. It won't charge at all. I'm replacing it today. Let's hope that this was the real problem all along.

I also just picked up another Escort, a 1998 ZX2. I'm the second owner and went to work with the original owner two weeks after she bought it. She has taken great care of it and I think that I will be enjoying it for some time.