Please Help!! Smoke comming From the Dash

Hey I own a 1995 Oldsmobile aurora I love this car, the power the look the speed.

recently I was trying to re adjust the headlight angles and all of a sudden the keyless entry would not work at all and I lost all of the readings on the dash and the air came on full blast. I have no speedometer, tachometer, fuel gage, or temperature. The radio is the only thing that is working. I found that a fuse #37 in the rear compartment passenger side fuse block controlled all of this but when I pulled it out it burnt my hand but was not blown. Shortly after smoke started billowing out of the dash. Naturally I freaked out because i just finished an entire brake job on this car. If anyone could help me in problem solving this pain. I can imagine that now I have a fried wire, I would really appreciate some help in how to replace/ repair the wire and how to get that part of the dash off.

Thank you very much in advance for all of your help.

I was just looking at the car more closely and discovered that the hazard light keeps blinking even though the 4-ways are not on and it keeps blinking weather the car is on or off. Also the smell of burning plastic has filled the car. Am I looking at single wire being fried or has an entire cluster of wires just melted? Is there a cheap and fast way of fixing this?
Thank you again

This may not be a simple wire issue, there is a dead short in that circuit and to continue to allow current to flow in that circuit is inviting a fire. This could be a short in the steering column, related to and/or the ign switch or signal switch, careful here. Remember the air bag is in this vicinity.

I took out the fuse and nothing has changed, I have no choice but to drive it for now with no instruments and air because of $$ but I would really like to fix it myself I just cannot figure out how to get to the wiring behind the air controls I am convinced that the short is there because all of the controls work in the steering Colum (signals, wipers...) it just concerns me that I will be driving with no information on how the car is running and the speed I am going. if only I could find how to get to the wiring and locate the short and maybe repair it at low costs, I have lost all faith in my mechanic and GM when they refused to honour the recall of the plastic fuel rails seeing that I lost almost 1/2 tank of liquid gold when one of the rails developed a crack. Any help on the way to go on getting behind the air controls would be greatly appreciated Thank you

You need a good shop manual and wiring diagram here, this is too complex an issue to do this any other way, alldata.com has an online manual that is very good, also you are driving a car with what sounds like a potential fire hazard?

Thanks for the link I will be purchasing a membership with them; it looks like a good deal if they do deliver on the info. I was wondering the hazard light keeps blinking on the dash whether the car is on or not and the 4-ways are not on but when I apply the brakes the light goes off or when the car is moving with no throttle the light goes off is this a clue on where the circuit may be blown? Also the heater is on and the fan is blowing but not at full blast. Usually when the fuse blew the heater would go on full blast. What the hell is going on with this car?:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Thank you so much for all the help!

I have just recently found out that the problem that would cause the fuse to blow is a bolt in either of the two front doors rubbing up against the wiring harness. The problem in my case is that the fuse didn’t blow instead the current kept flowing... does anyone know what would be affected or what circuit would blow with this excessive overload of power. Also the front driver seat will not move but this is normal for the blown fuse.

Thank you very much