Look at this as a guess and please leave me a thumbs up if I get lucky but NOT a thumbs down if I don't have the right answer OK? I can't afford a bad mark for trying to help someone.
The smoke you saw may have been only the fuse burnning out. This is not a serious thing unless it continues to blow more fuses. We now need to get you under the dash and locate the fuse box. Some boxes are covered by a flap that blends in with the dash so if you don't see the box by looking under the left hand driver side then look for that flap and pull down or off or what ever. Once you find the box you should see a diagram on the front of the cover or behind the cover. You will be looking for one marked instrument panel. But in your case with the smoke you need to check every single fuse. that one fuse may have taken more then one with it. Pull each one 1 at a time and look to see if the wire inside it is melted in the center or blackend. If the wire is good it will look clean and the wire will be one complete wire with an arch to it. That is unless yours are the old glass type but same therory. the wire inside must be complete.
Make sure the key is out of the ignition before replacing the bad one/ones. Replace with only the same amp fuse that came out of it. Mark and remeber where the bad fuse was. After you have checked all the fuses then with your flashlight look at the surrounding wiring for any melted wires under that area of the dash and under where you saw the smoke come from. If you find melted wire under there then remove the bad fuse you replaced until you can get good wire spliced into the melted wire.
If you do not see any melted wire then come up and turn the ignition switch to on and watch and listen for another pop. See if the dash lights come back on if you don't see smoke or hear the pop. If they do then you should be good to go. Fingers crossed at my end. Remember me in your kind works, Raz
SOURCE: 99 cavalier Smoke coming out from under dashboard!
now this may be a long shot... but i had a similar problem on my cutlass. but it wasnt wiring...... it was from the tube running from the head of my engine...... the smell and smoke were coming from hot oil coming out of the crank case vent tube and then being sucked into the air inlet for the heater/ ac.
since a electrical wire's protective cover is petroleum based as is oil.... they smell very similar
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Just had several problems related to your post. Dash lights went out then came smoke and then even worse no right blinkers and number 13 fuse kept bowing out. 2 emergency flasher switches later, 1 blinker handle and ignition replacement! Nothing absolutely nothing. And to say the least i tryed looking for a short in wires and that was crazy. All good with wires. To make this short take off panel under driver's side! 3 screws and look way deep inside and you will see more relays. Make sure they are pushed in all the way! They become lose from vibrations and cause havic. Hope this works for you.
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