Replacing/Wiring a cigarrette lighter

[71Ford]

My 71 Ford PU's factory cig.Lighter no longer works.

I purchased a $4.00 replacement from Autozone. My Factory installed version only has two wires that I could see that are attached(the light source wire and the power wire that has the little black boot that slips over the end of the lighter.)

I installed the new one and plugged in the power source to the back and attached the new bulb to the light source wire....I tried it out and the new lighter worked!!!!

Then I decided I wanted to keep the original ford lighter handle so I put it in and I saw a spark....but I went ahead and pushed it in to see if it'd work; it did not. I also noticed that the cig.lighter light did not go off, so I took out the bulb and tried again to push the Ford cig.handled in to the new housing and I blew a fuse...my overhead light and cargo light don't work now. . . . any ideas as to why it blew a fuse? Am I supposed to ground it? I did not notice a ground wire on the factory set up....did I mess it up by taking out the light bulb???? Could the 1971 handle not be compatible w/ the new socket? It seems to fit normal.
Thanks.

[Faithful Old Road Dog]

Not sure about your new set up. The original lighter housing grounds to the dash sheetmetal. The housing will have some "prongs" that are supposed to hit the back of the dash. Not a great ground set up as sometimes the housing gets a little loose or the contact at the dash sheetmetal gets rusty. I wouldn't think that a bad ground would pop a fuse. You can use an ohm meter to check the ground. Clean the backside of the dash to get a good ground. Check and see that none of the hot wires have a fray in the insulation and has grounded to something. When you change the fuse, does it pop again?