andy251203

I recently inherited this Civic from my sister after she upgraded to a 2006 Accord. It was driving just fine when the Speedometer suddenly quit working. Lo and behold, the famous fuse 15 blown problem shows up. I get under the car and separate the wires that are known to commonly short to the intake bracket for this issue. I didn't properly tape them off because I have a crappy jack and I could barely get under the car. But the fuse no longer blows so for the mean time the short should be gone.

After I fix that issue, the alternator suddenly stops working. I found this out the hard way when the car suddenly died while driving. (Fortunately I was in a parking lot at the time.) Fuse 15 not blown, speedo working, so the alternator must be bad, right?

I went ahead and replaced both the alternator and battery (battery was really old, so it needed replacing anyway). I replaced the battery first and drove the car home on the dead alternator just fine.

After I replaced the alternator, as soon as I started the car, smoke was coming out of the fuse box and off the battery terminals! I immediately turned off the car and disconnected the battery. Now I have a short circuit between the battery terminals and it will smoke if I put the terminals on the battery.

My question is where do I go from here? Fuse 15 is not blowing. I have the new alternator completely disconnected (green plug and charging wire disconnected, not accidentally touching a metal grounding surface) and the short circuit is still there. If I remove the main 80A fuse the short goes away but shouldn't the 80A fuse blow if there's a short on the battery terminals? Why didn't it blow? Perhaps my ELD is bad and I should replace the whole fuse box?

Any help would be appreciated!!

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

I suggest you recheck your wiring of that alternator (and battery) and then think about investing in a new harness and fusebox.

Former User

Post many pictures of the locations where the wires are burning.

tony_2018

To save you of troubleshooting and probably more issues later on, find another obd2a engine harness that fits your engine setup, meaning auto for auto and 5spd for 5spd.

edit: and another fusebox. Hopefully it didn't damage anything us INSIDE the car.

marshun

i'd go with what tony said. unless you have the time to go ahead and clean up the wiring (Ive had to do this to other cars. hate it. takes forever.)

so new harness and fusebox.

andy251203

Ok, sounds like a plan. Looking at the fuse box the alternator terminal looks like it got burnt up. Everything else looks okay but the fuse box doesn't look like it can be taken apart easily so I guess investing in a new one is a good idea.



The battery terminals also got corroded so I went ahead and bought new ones.

I found some harnesses on ebay so I'll purchase one soon. I'm kind of a newbie at this stuff.

For safe measure I removed the alternator and took it back to the store and they tested it and said it was perfectly good (which I expected).

Dumb question: Obviously you're supposed to disconnect the battery when replacing the alternator, which I did. But I only disconnected the negative terminal and left the positive one on. Did I make a mistake by not disconnecting the positive terminal as well?

andy251203

Found the issue. Got the new fuse box in (which didn't change the issue) and found out that the short goes away when I pull the main 30A headlight fuse. Car runs and charges fine without that fuse. So I'm guessing I have a short in the headlight wiring somewhere...

The real question is why did the fuse never blow in the first place? Because the headlights weren't on?

Former User

Because there's no relationship whatsoever between fuse 15 and fuse 48 (headlights).

chroniclifter

never seen that before. Sorry

andy251203

Doing more probing today... here's what I found so far:

-Short only occurs when the headlight switch on the steering wheel is turned to the headlight position. Short goes away when it is in the off or parking light position.

-With the main headlight harness is unplugged (grey plug next to fuse box and blue plug above alternator) the short is still there, so this wiring must be good. I actually took this wiring out and inspected it and it looks OK. Wish I hadn't... it's a pain.

-Pulling fuse 32 under the dash (license and tail lights) makes the short circuit increase resistance to 15 ohms, but does not eliminate the short completely.


Could the headlight switch itself be bad or does the problem lie elsewhere?

I'm about to throw in the towel on this car. I'm out of ideas.

grumblemarc

iTrader: (4)

If you tested it you would answer your own question. Stop speculating.

parchment

Hey there guys. Just joined the site to seek information in my troubleshooting of an electrical issj e on my 97 ex civic 2 door 5 speed..

Quick history.

About 3 years ago did an engine swap. Got the 1.5 replacement to save some mom ey before doing a full K swap. Anyway car ran great all that time. 4 months ago I swapped transmission due to worn gears. Car still ran great afterwards.

About a week ago I drove to work just fine. After work I got in it and there was no power for anything. No dash lights, not powere locks or windows no starter. Figured a bad battery and push started the car. Started up and powers up everything drove home just fine. Got home and turned off and tried to restart but no go still no power to anything.

Checked battery and passed. Checked ignition swjtch and passed. Trassed power from ignition switch going into main fuse box under dash and all fusses are gok d. Dont know where to go from there. I suspect a faulty relay but don't know which one to target. Can anyone help me shine some light on the issue please?