I was driving home from work yesterday and smoke started coming from my dash around the fan speed switch. so i pulled over and turned the fan off and it stoped smoking. about an hour later i turned the fan back on and about 30 mins after it was on it did the same thing agian. so i unplugged the varistor and right now im just running with out a fan. Anyone had any ideas? and is this something you can pick up at the dealer or autozone?

 

This happened to me in my 96 S10, same exact thing. I went to the dealer bought a new switch and it fixed it right up. Hasn't happened again in like 4 years.

 

My personal suggestion is: If you can find the entire HVAC control head on ebay (some are like $25 bucks), replace the entire control. Who knows what kind of other damage was done?
The smoke could mean the area around the switch could have melted or the **** might be hard to replace by itself (could be soldered??). Try ebay Item # 110451375955 . If you don't have the complicated computer climate control, this might work for you. As far as I can see, what you would have to do is remove the dash panels as if you were going to replace the radio, but do it with the HVAC controls. No cutting open the control panel needed.

My multifunction switch did the same thing a few months ago. Turn signal clicker was stuck on (even with the blinkers off) and there was smoke coming from the top of the steering wheel. I had to yank the fuse to get rid of the clinker noise and the smoke. After I replaced it, I found all fried internal components and "cooked" grease.

Good luck.

BD