What Could Be Wrong If The Fan Doesn't Turn On And Work On Keeping Motor Cool?

my van started over heating on me last night so I parked it til I could have it looked at and found out that fan wasnt turnin on and having it running for about 30 mins while we figuring out y it's over heating it started smoking inside the part of fan where the wires come out of that part. I disconnected the wire harness that plugs into another wire part that is connected to the fuse box under the hood to what I can gether. When I unplugged the two wires the three metal pieces that go inside the holes on the other wire had plastic melting around the metal pieces due to getting to hot from the electric current goin through it. I'm thinking a wire got striped somehow from its rubber tubing it's in and grounding out by touching something that the wire shouldn't be touching to began with. Then I need help on how to find where the radiator is leaking from. I knw it can either be somewhere on the hoses that's connected to it or it could be on the actual radiator mental and if it's not a really big and bad crack on the radiator then I can do a temporary fix that will work til I'm able to put it in shop to get fix corretly. Last but not least I need to knw exactly how many belts this van has for it and exactly how to replace each belt for the van to run corretly. It's not my van but a friends van and I'm trying to make sure it has no problems happen so they can get from point a to point b til they r able to afford another car. With all of these problems will it be cheaper to fix all of it or would it be cheaper to get another car cause if it's Goin to cost more to fix it then what it's worth I rather have them take that cash a put it towards another car that's goin to be more dependable since they r still in college. Please walk me through how to find all the problems and fix them in a very detailed descriptions with pictures if possible on what each part looks like and how those parts r used when it's fixed and put on correctly for each of all of these problems I'm askin about. The more details on how to locate and fix each one then the better please. I'm a female that's helpin out a friend as much as I can with the small amount of knowledge of how to work on motors that I've be able to teach myself from askin questions and doin it myself by researching how to repair or replace what's broken or how to figure out how to narrow the problem down and fixing it starting from the simplest way to fix it to the hardest way to do it. I cancel out each and everything that can cause the problem by eliminating each thing that can cause the problem til I find whatever piece is causing it and then repair or replace that part and then finish checking what else can cause the problem and makin sure there's no more problems that was wrong also. Plus I like showin and makin points to people that think I can't do any of it cause I'm a blonde and they assume I'm to dumb to knw how. So please help me teach this male how to fix and maintain this van to prove that I knw how to do more to a car motor then alot of males calm they knw how to do. If by chance I can get response back before it's to late into today so I can have all of it fixed by time today is over with then that would be awesome and thank u for ur time on gettin back with me on this matter