I drive a 98' Daewoo Cielo and did a bit of off-roading. In my defence I dont care if I hit a tree or two as long as its not a head on.

Anyway, my steering wheel started smoking 12hrs later, smoke lasted 10secs and stops but repeats everytime I start up. My guess is a short circuit.

How easy is it to get a steering wheel off to have a look. Fairly certain it has no airbag.

sounds like a horn switch, which may be a result of massive current draw through the switch, which may be a result of a short somewhere and a faulty fuse.

advice : pull the horn fuse and/or any relays immediately. do not drive with that fuse in untill you've diagnosed the problem.

Hrmm, good idea. I'll take the fuse out tomorrow and see what happens.

If I don't see smoke again I'll just put a new horn in. Saves me the trouble. I don't ever plan on selling this car. I don't exactly keep it in the best condition as you can imagine.

Thanks for that as well.

Ohh, my engine also sounds different, well, the exhaust I don't know. It sounds weaker, would that just be water in the engine somewhere?

I am mechanically retarded.

your horns probably not the problem here, theres a major wiring problem occuring.

if somethigns grounding in the engine bay and drawing heaps of current, its getting warm. Its also melting the switch in the steering wheel.

The fuse is also not doing its job, so see if its been replaced with something higher than recommended in the past.

Last, but not least. FIRE FIRE FIRE.
Dont just replace the horn without inspecting all the wiring/the fuse/the fuse holder.

Oh, I'm gonna check all the wiring in the engine bay tomorrow. I meant once I remove the problem I am not going to bother fixing it all up to perfection again. Just make it safe.

Alright, I think I fixed it.

One of my fuses (forget which one, but a 30amp one) was belt and so the fuse wasnt acting as a fuse, allowing as much current to pass through as possible. I replaced that and then found a wire in the engine bay that was sparking against some other part. I removed that (seemed like a spare wire, was big, about 8g so I doubt it just snapped in half) and now everything seems fine.

I couldn't get to the horn relay as it is on the other side of my fuse board and we have no idea how to remove the fuse board and my manual doesn't tell me how Giving it another go later.

I also found out why my car sounds funny. I must have bottomed out a few times and I've ripped a few holes in my muffler. Any reason I should fix this other than the funny sounds?

to get the steering wheel off, you usually use a steering wheel puller, very cheap.

Or if your tight like me and your steering wheel is anything like mine what you do is take off the central nut untill its most of the way up VERY IMPORTANT, READ THAT AGAIN "Most of the way up" Now get in the drivers seat and pull that thing untill it slams up against the bolt... Now of course if you skipped that last bit it slams up into your face.....

Oh and btw, make sure 100% that your wheels are straight else you'll find yourself driving in circles later, if you muck this up the only fix is to get a wheel allignment

And with the exhaust I dont think it will matter too much as long as your not worried about being defected... although if your catalytic converter gets busted that could be nasty.....

Havnt had a chance to take the wheel of yet (No driving being done really, sept for maybe 5 minutes one day) but I have work off tomorrow to check it out.

I dont really care about being defected. They'll find 50 other things to defect me for before they notice that :>

How much are wheel alignments nowadays? I nearly rolled the day before I did that and I think I need one.

probably more expensive than a new daewoo.

jesus, you've given it a thrashing in 8 years havent ya

Ohh, I've owned it for 4 months. Came to me perfect.

Had it checked out this mornign and they said it was just my messed up fuse which I fixed.

THEN I went back to do some more mucking around in the dirt (learning to drift, not in the daewoo though, the daewoo I just thrash) and now my injectors arnt pulsing or something. Lmfao. I found it bloody funny but my mates didn't. Anyway, its sitting at the auto electritions till Monday.

I got told its either my computer or my little do das that tell the computer when to make the injectors pulse. Anyone got an idea on worse case best case scenarios on $$$?

I get tax back on the fixing since I use the car for work :>

Yay!

My car had an alarm apparantly and when my car went flat and the cd player was on at the same time the alarm armed itself. A fuse was blown (fuel pump) so thats why it wouldn't start first.

I feel dumb. I didn't even know I had an alarm. They had to cut the alarm out or some crap.