ReaperBJJ

So I bought a project '89 240 as my first S-chassis, something to learn tons more about car on, and as well, my first performance car.(I've drove an autotragic '95 Sentra XE until now and am still keeping it for winter) Well, this 240 has turned out to be a handful. The previous owner had no idea what he was doing on a lot of stuff, and seemed to have a cut first, ask questions later attitude. He also smashed the old ignition tumbler off because he lost the key so I had to replace that. Because of that it has electrical problems that have been driving me crazy for days.

1)Nothing works on my Accessory setting, only my headlights work at all times.
2)Nothing works right at start-up like it should, everything is the same as if the car was off, until I rev the car a few times and then the clock, heater fan, tails, brake lights, any other things I had turned on will click on.
3)Dashlights work fine after I rev the car like stated above, but I've noticed that the door chime will only work while the headlights are on.
4) horn and auto seatbelts don't work no matter what, not a big deal because they're stuck in the back position but still....
5) I believe theres a short somewhere in the gauge cluster, My speedo, tach, seatbelt light, e-brake light, etc. Worked for awhile but one time when I was reving the engine up a little bit all the things I just listed died. I checked the fuse box and noticed that the fuse marked "meter" was blown, so I replaced it with a new one, turned the motor back on, did the rev thing, the cluster stuff worked for a second and then the fuse blew again.
6) My idle is ****, it'll drop really low sometimes and then jump back up a bit.
7) There are 4 cut off and bare wires coming from the harness that runs to the wiper/light lever switches, and one plug with no mate coming directly out of the ignition tumbler. The colors are red/blue stripe, blue/no stripe, yellow/red stripe(as far as I know that's supposed to be the wire for the tach, maybe I didn't see the color right), and blue/red stripe. There is also a thicker teal wire coming out of a spliced connection for the red/blue stripe wire. Also there are about 3-4 wires not connect to anything, and not taped in the audio harness.


Ignore the gaping hole in my floor panel, I just haven't gotten around to welding it as I'm busy trying to fix the electrical issue.

I have already tried putting in a brand new ACC relay and that did not work. My alternator is brand new, I just put it in this past weekend.
I think I covered all the info that I have at the moment. Could somebody give me some ideas or advice? I believe that it might be a grounding problem and that I might have a short in my cluster area. I've taken the gauge cluster off and I don't see anything that looks out of the ordinary to me, but I am a noob to cars, and especially to the hell that is wiring.

ANY help would be appreciated, I want to get this wiring done so I can move on to other things

Signum Temporis

looks like it was stolen and sounds like a scrap-er... it would probably be easier to buy one in better condition than trying to restore your current one... but if ur really deadset on fixing those...
first, start by either downloading a factory service manual (theres troubleshooting pages regarding your idle situation), in ur case itll probably be better to go out and buy the hardcopy because ur gonna need it,

check ur grounds, that could be causing the blown fuses,

reconnect all the wires and see what happens,

i just noticed the shit-ton of rust... check ur frame... u really might wanna get rid of it if ur frame is rusty, i had an s13 like this and the frame actually caved in while i was driving it ,

u most likely have a vacuum leak causing ur idle problem,
other possibilities are: sticky EGR valve, injectors and circuits, spark plugs, fuel pressure, heated oxygen sensor, idle-adjust screw clogging, and compression... sounds like a lot but its easy stuff to check,

your horn and seatbelts are probably disconnected somewhere,

all the stuff that doesnt turn on until u rev it probably have dirty/bad connections,

keep me updated on those issues, im interested to see how this turns out