fire hazard
 

Hey,

The other day I put the key in my ignition, turned it into the on position, and smoke started pouring out of my center console. I'm suspecting it to be the power mirror switch. Now when I move it into L or R, the mirror will start moving without me pushing any of the arrow buttons. Shouldn't a fuse have blown? Or is it part of the cigarette lighter circuit? Would that enable it to take such a high temp without blowing a fuse? Pretty scary stuff since the lighter works without the key in the car.

Wow, dude, I'm assuming that you're not the first owner of this car. Yeah, most japanese cars have ciggy lighters that work with the key out so I'm guessing someone wired around the fusing system and attached it to a permanent hot wire. Good news is that taking the center console out is a cinch and usually I've found these electrical fires to happen in little "clumps" as opposed to along their entire length. You'll have to pry the fried wires apart and wrap them in electrical tape. I would attend to this soon as I had a real full blown electrical fire aboard my saab and it's not pleasant!

I got the car from a FHP auction. It's a 91 Florida Highway Patrol car. They did other creative electrical work also. When I first got it, my headlights wouldn't turn on. Turns out they had installed a toggle switch INSIDE one of the cavities within the dash. How's that for a hair puller. Also, my stock domelight doesn't work. They installed one of those huge RV bathroom style lights in the ceiling. The trunk release is also relocated under the dash for you to be able to accidentally hit the button with your knee.

If it were me, I would go to mernard's nearby and replace all those lovely "features" that they put into your car with nice, stock looking and well blended oem parts. Spend a weekend and strip. If you pull off the dashboard and the 2 rocker panel covers, you can access most of the wiring. I rewired my car completely and I stripped like 2/3 of the wiring out of it. Most of it was needless or poorly designed. Now I KNOW that my car has fresh wires inside it and everything is a larger guage than it needs to be. Plus it's fun

Kinda unrelated, but the police package mustangs usually included moving the trunk release to under the column for easier access. same thing with the "1 key" doors/ignition.

J

p.s. Where in Fl are you?

Yeah, the one key deal was cool until my ignition broke.