Wires Burning in Steering Wheel
Wires Burning in Steering Wheel Well its that time of year to assess some of the problems with my 00' bird. Every so often I see smoke coming up from the steering wheel and smells like a wire burning inside. I have been lucky enough for the airbag not to deploy on me or have any interior lights flickering or even the steering wheel controls burning out on me. What makes this very strange is that I have been ignoring this problem for sometime now going on 3 years of this mystery wire burning. Before I have pulled the horn/airbag assembly apart but have found no wires to be burning in that area. So now i'm assuming its time to pull the steering wheel. I also have one of my headlight wires burning the plastic on the ends/ also the harness for the wire has a corroded end *pictures are pending due to my camera not focusing correctly. I'm not sure if the two are related in any way, I have been searching for wiring diagrams for these unusual occurances but have not turned up anything. I would really appreciate some help on tracing down the problems. I have since cleaned up the ground for my abs module which has solved all my brake lights turning on as well the two grounds for both my headlights. I have no problem purchasing a steering wheel puller for these problems, I am trying to figure out which steering wheel puller would be correct from autozone. Any help would be appreciated for this mess.
Launching!
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 217
Likes: 0
From: WI
I've had a similar problem with a couple GM cars in the past. What I've found is the turn signal cam assembly was the source. The TS cam/cancel has grease that found it's way onto the rotating electrical contact area, and that occasionally would burn at the contacts, causing that little string of smoke to appear out of the steering column. Not sure this is your problem, but it's not that uncommon. I usually noticed it when I would start the car, released a decent amount of smoke at times.
I've had a similar problem with a couple GM cars in the past. What I've found is the turn signal cam assembly was the source. The TS cam/cancel has grease that found it's way onto the rotating electrical contact area, and that occasionally would burn at the contacts, causing that little string of smoke to appear out of the steering column. Not sure this is your problem, but it's not that uncommon. I usually noticed it when I would start the car, released a decent amount of smoke at times.
Last edited by Firebirdgm2000; Jul 22, 2009 at 05:47 PM.
Launching!
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 217
Likes: 0
From: WI
I don't know that your "stalk" is bad, I was referring to the cancel cam and/or multi-function switch inside the steering column. I haven't had this happen on my TA but I've had it happen with two GP's I've owned. I started to lose my turn signals and I was able to correct the problem without replacing the switch. The turn signals needed some contacts "retensioned" for a positive connection. These contacts would arc and would burn the grease causing the smoke. I'm not sure this is your problem but it's something to take a look at. I pm'ed you a pic of the part I'm talking about. Do a websearch for "smoking steering columns" etc., it isn't all that uncommon.
Last edited by mikey67; Jul 23, 2009 at 05:10 PM.
