My civic is possessed!

[Matt Timion]

We were driving tonight in my civic. I'm trying to drive it as much as possible so that I can get a good MPG reading sometime soon.

Anyway, as I'm waiting at a stop light my dashboard lights cut out and my radio dies. I look at the gauge cluster and see smoke coming up.

I quickly pull over expecting the worst.

Popped the hood... nothing was on fire.

Got back inthe car and drove home.

On the entire drive home, I noticed somethign weird. The gas gauge now read 1/2 full instead of the previous 3/4 full. The coolant temperature gauge was moving relative to my engine speed, and would actually pulse with the vehicle speed sensor.

When I got home I turned off the car. I have a small alarm rigged up to let me know if i left my lights on. It was sounding off, even though my lights were not on. when I removed my foot from the brake the alarm stopped sounding.

It's obvious to me that I have a wiring issue... I'm guessing that a wire burned somewhere and now I have crossed wires, which explains why my guages were measuring the wrong thing.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to where to start? I need these demons out of my car.