Wire on fire/almost a major electrical fire
 

1996 Chevy Blazer 4 door 2X4 4.3L vortec VIN type W


I ran my heater through the vents for about 10 minutes, nothing major. When I went to park the car i noticed a nice little puff of white smoke come from the air speed selector from the HVAC control assembly (heater knobs on the dash). I freaked, turned the car off and prepared to grab a fire extinguisher from the business I just pulled up too.

Once i felt it was clear. I undid the negative battery terminal and pulled off the center dash plastic housing. I peered back through the cavity behaind the HVAC control assembly where the smoke came out through and spotted the big bundle of wires that run the width of the dash. At the bottom of the bundle was a black wire that had burned open and had a exposed wire kind of arcing out. I stupidly drove home and now have the old girl all torn apart in the driveway. No more smoke or fire, but I think I just got lucky. I now realzied that I'm not really going to be able to get to this wire cause after 3 hours of removing the whole instrument panel I now see that the bundle of wires snakes through the plastic dash. I can't get to the wire from the back, and actually I can see it better through the cavity in the front.


What should I do. Its almost like I could preform surgery through the front of the instrument panel and clip it. Should I? is the black wire a ground wire? Last week I had the ground wire on the starter come loose and work fine after tightening down. Could that of done anything to this little sparky?

Please help, the kids need to get to school on Monday and I'm desperate.