electrical hell

[rosgunt]

hello all, my brother in law has a '74 260z that he asked me about an electrical issue that he has developed. When he first purchased the car he had interior and exterior lights. Now nothing works, i figured bad ground so i checked all connections. they are clean. Then checked fuse panel, no power at any fuse, which leads me to believe the fusible link. when we checked that we found the rear wire lead to be broken so we made a "jump" wire for test purposes. When we installed it we got smoke and spark at terminal connection, but still no lights. I am at a loss, did i miss something, going about this the wrong way. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.

thanks

Dan

[Walter Moore]

It sounds like you have a major short circuit somewhere and the fuseable link did it's job and prevented a fire.

Check places where the wiring goes through grommets to see if the insulation has worn through allowing the wire inside to touch the metal frame. You may have to disconnect one part of the wiring at a time and check for continuity to the frame with an ohm meter.

If it burned through that fast it must be a major short.

[=Enigma=]

Could this be the result of a melted fuse block, causing one or more contacts to touch?