... : : I am left with the task of removing the remaining 2 smoke detectors, : then one by one opening each junction in the basement on the blown : circuit until i find a short. It should be nice and smokey black : shouldn't it? : : Fish. : :
No, not necessarily. It depends on what the short is. If it's something in direct and solid contact, there might not even be any evidence of arccing, etc..
If I were you, I'd get out (or buy a cheap) my multimeter, disconnect the wire from the breaker again, and leave it off for the duration, remove/unplug everything in/on that branch, including lights, and start tracing. If you have to buy a cheapie at RS or someplace, get one with a beeper sound when it sees shorts; very handy.
Or, call in a pro, but you really should STOP testing it by popping the ckt breaker every time or it may really GO bad, or worse, a fire might start and smolder somewhere until it's too late.
Constantly stressing/flipping a ckt brkr is definitely bad for it; they're just not made to be used as switches. Besides, it's a lot safer to work without power on the line. You DO kill the Mains to work on the breaker, right? Even if you don't pull one out, the right move could put a pile of them right into your lap when that cover's off. Very often the covers hold the breakers in proper place.
HTH,
Pop