wiring problem

[dgardhawk]

having trouble with a short to ground smoked an 8 gauge red wire from the pos side of the battery that goes to a terminal on the side of a truck, and to a wire bundle that goes to the firewall. the only thing i did was change battery and it started to happen. it looks like this wire goes to the ignition switch and the lights after it comes out of the firewall. i changed the battery cables neg and pos. and change the wire that smoked with an inline fuse., but fuses are not cheap checking this out either. i have found a few bare wires near the fuse box fixed them. so i pulled every fuse and i still have a short issue,and i changed the ignition switch because it looked bad on the inside.
any thoughts on this will help
thanks,