I think I found it. I was tinkering during my lunch hour while I actually have some good daylight to work with, and I found there is a cable run that goes up the left side of the radio and HVAC console (looking straight in) that is covered in wireloom. There's a very sharp edge on the chassis that looks like it sliced right through one or several of the wires. It was actually smoking while I was pulling wires!
What a horrible place for a sharp edge. This is FACTORY wiring I might add.. never touched by me. I will u/l pics later to show you what I'm talking about.
Here are the pictures. The first is an overall shot - look at the harness on the left side. The 2 after that are close-ups showing the wireloom clearly rubbing against the sharp edge of the chassis.
overall.jpg
shot1.jpg
shot2.jpg