Alrighty. Now i get to use the vast knowledge of all the smart poeple here at HAN once again. Just had another problem with the 91 CRX Si. I was driving down the road and the steering column started smoking. It smoked for about 10 seconds or so. Any ideas on what problem i'm fixing to have in the near future? Could it be the ignition wiring harness going bad? I've actually had to change one before, on my 86 crx because it quit running and would'nt stay cranked, because of it. I don't ever remember it smoking though.

 

Get down there with a flash light and look for melted wires... It could be anything there, since the fuse box is down there, almost all of your wires run there in some form of another... For example, my car did it once to my brother (when he owned it), turned out it was a faulty wire that was used to power his amps... The whole wire got so hot it melted the rubber part of the wire...

 

I got smoke from the steering column of an '89 Civic which turned out to be the ignition switch contacts being worn. That car had begun to occasionally start but immediately die, also. I was on a trip when I started getting smoke, so I twisted the "Run" wire to a +12V source, effectively bypassing the contacts which were worn. I would just untwist the wires to shut the car off.

I replaced the contacts after returning home and the problems went away.

Your problem could be all sorts of things, but ignition switch contacts are a good guess. -scott

 

Yep. That's what i think it is. Right before i left, it cranked and died right away twice. It then cranked and ran fine. About 5 minutes later, smoke from the column appeard for about 10 seconds or so. I turned it of and it cranked right back up. I guess i'll go ahead and buy the harness before it leaves me stranded somewhere.

 

You're buying the contacts. They screw to the back of the ignition switch and have a connector to your dash wiring harness. I'm confident you've found the cause. -scott

 

Yep. That was it. It's actually the 3rd one i've done. I did it on my 86 crx and my dads 88 prelude a long time ago. You could see where the solder actually melted on back of the switch and actually touched another solder. That's what caused the smoke i guess. It was 65 bucks with tax and my local Honda shop had it in stock. It was kind of a pain changing it out because some of my alarm wires were spliced into it. From my experience, if a Honda is at least 10 years old, this part will eventually go bad. Thanks for the help people, even though i kind of figured that's what it was.