Sr420Det

Ok so I searched through all 132 previous threads. Heres the deal my f in cigarette lighter doesnt work. Iv check the fuse its fine, everything is hooked up, the bulb for the ash tray works, the radio works, and I checked for power right before the lighter and its getting power. I took the cig lighter out of my civic (which works fine in MY car) and put it into my girls and still nothing, I dont know what else to check. I also cant get my speed sensor to work either, i checked the ground on the thermostate housing and its fine.

Ohmster

Lighter does not work. Get a mechanic's test light (Cheap at any auto parts store) with a pointy sharp ice pick end and clip it to ground. Clip the test light to ground (Any chassis metal of the car or even to the ignition key.) and touch the post/peg/flat part at the bottom of the lighter by touching it with the test light, it will light if you have power. If no power, follow the wire that goes to the lighter and stick the sharp end of the ice pick light right into the wire as you move along until it lights up, now you found power and where the wire is broken. Cut the bad part out of the wire and splice it back together and tape it up. Lighter works now. You can even go the other way by touching the fuse for the lighter with the test light and follow from there all the way to the lighter until you find where the circuit is broken. When the light goes out, you found your break.

Here is what a test light looks like at Advance Auto Parts:
http://www.partsamerica.com/Pr...=3065

Speed sensor not working should trip the car's CEL (Check Engine Light). Read the CEL sticky post at the top of this forum on how to diagnose CEL problems and how to find out what is not working. Here is the post:

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread/1901557

I have changed my own speed sensor, it cost me $65 at a imports auto parts store. Easy to replace, only two bolts and a wire, right at the top of the engine. Having the service manual for the car helps to show where all parts are and how to test and replace them. You can get a decent manual free from here:

http://www.hondahookup.com/

Sign up and head for the manual download section. I got a nice pdf manual for my '95 Civic with bookmarks in it. That is really nice because the manual is over 1,200 pages and to have a clickable index helps a REAL lot. Easy to use, find how to do stuff with pictures. Worth the download, go grab the manual.

Good luck.


Modified by Ohmster at 6:08 PM 7/4/2008

Sr420Det

Yeah I know how to change a speed sensor and yes its triggering a cel (do you think this will have any impact on power and milage?) but I dont wanna spend 65 bucks if its not the sensor. You see the same thing happend on mine and my boys civic, I just cleaned my ground and it worked, my boy is in the middle of a build so well find out later. The cel only comes on after while, usually while decelerating.
Back to the lighter, I was wrong the third wire wasnt getting any power so I just cut it and the red wire ( for the light in the ash tray) and attached it to the red wire so now the lighter works but I just have to have the lights on. Do you think this is ok, can I harm anything. I suck at electronics. Thanks for the info

Ohmster

Putting the lighter on the dash light circuit is not a very good idea. The reason is that a cigarette lighter takes a LOT of current to make that thing get red hot like that, albeit it is only for a short time, but still, it is a LOT of current. Now you are straining your dash light circuit every time you light a cig and what is going to happen is you will be driving at night, light a cig, and blow the fuse for the dash light circuit and will be now driving in the dark. Not to mention that you have to turn the lights on now to light a cig. If you are going to run wires, then just run the lighter wire all the way to the fusebox and cut the lighter wire right there and attach a new wire. Which wire is it? Remember that manual we talked about? Yeah, they tell you all of that stuff right there in the manual. On my Civic the lighter is on the radio circuit and the manual says that is fuse #23, a 15 Amp fuse with a yellow/red wire attached to it. The dash lights are on fuse #19, a 10 Amp fuse with a red/black wire attached. 10 amps is NOT enough current to run the lighter safely with lights on the circuit, you WILL blow the fuse this way.

Millage? Uh, yeah well, a bad speed sensor is going to screw up the ECM (Engine Control Module) and it may not ration the gas appropriately. When I bought my Civic, it had a bad 02 sensor and a burned out CEL so I did not know it, I went through two tanks of gas a week with that thing and was freaking out. It was not until I re-lamped the dash did I find out I had a CEL tripped, traced it to a bad 02 sensor, and replaced it, that I got my car to use only a tank of gas every week or 10 days now instead of twice a week. What a difference!

Well the speed sensor is the reason I mentioned the CEL. It is an easy test, fish the wire out from under passenger dash and stick a paper clip into the two wires to short them together, turn key on (Do not start car.) and count the blinks. See if you are really getting a speed sensor indication or not. It could be something else, that is what the CEL is for and it is pretty useful. If it does show as a faulty speed sensor, then I would imagine you would have to check it to see if it is bad or not before spending the 65 dollars. I told you about the manual for a reason, dude. On page 1081 of the manual is the Speedometer/Trip Meter/Odometer Troubleshooting page. They give you a chart to help diagnose the problem and there is a speed sensor test right on the bottom of the page. There is a real nice flow chart of what to test, in what order, to find out what is wrong and show you what to replace. You don't want to download the manual or something? Here are two pages from the manual that address your issue, get a look at what you are missing out on:

http://www.ohmster.com/~ohmste...o.pdf

Still don't want to download the manual? Then I don't know what to tell you.

Good luck.


Modified by Ohmster at 2:25 PM 7/4/2008


Modified by Ohmster at 2:31 PM 7/4/2008


Modified by Ohmster at 2:32 PM 7/4/2008

Sr420Det

I do have a helms and actually I think Ive downloaded this a long time ago. I really appreciate the help. Im 600 miles away from home right now I just needed the cig lighter to work so my daughter can watch tv. The speed sensor isnt a big deal right now (I averaged 40+mpg on the way up here) but I will look into it. I just worried about the cig lighter, will it be ok to run accesories off of it when its hooked up like that. On the ohm metec I just have it on 20dc and the neg and pos wires in the middle right? It was reading 18 when I checked the battery and ashtray light with it, which seemed a lil high. ( I know these volt meters might be different).

I cut the wire to the ash tray light and attached it to the cig lighter.
I didnt mean for you to go that much into details, thanks so much even though I think it was unnecessary. I do understand a bit of mechanics and have done numorous motor swaps but im not very good electronically.

Modified by Sr420Det at 11:37 AM 7/4/2008


Modified by Sr420Det at 11:42 AM 7/4/2008

Ohmster

I do not know what Helms manual you have but this original Honda manual is the cat's pajama's for sure. It is a 90.5Mb pdf file with a totally clickable index file built in and is 1.259 pages long. They show everything here, even the cigarette lighter circuit. The three wires are:

Black - Directly to ground
Red/black - Fuse 19 10 Amp dash light circuit (For light inside of cigarette lighter.)
Yellow/Red - Fuse 23 15 Amp radio/cigarette lighter fuse.

You do not measure volts with an ohmmeter. You measure volts with the meter set as a voltmeter. Normally a car battery should be around 13 Volts or so if fully charged. With key on yellow/red wire should have 13 Volts on it or battery voltage (Just put your Volt meter on the battery to see what that is.) on it. Red/black wire should have battery Voltage on it with lights on only. Black wire should be zero Volts at all times. Your meter is way off or you are just not using it right. DO NOT put the meter on Ohms when measuring live circuits! Only use the Ohm function on cold circuits where the battery is not connected or where for sure there is NO power!

If you want a "down and dirty" quick way to do this then just attach the cigarette lighter yellow/red wire directly to the car radio power wire, that is where it goes anyway. Make sure not to attach it to the radio light circuit so shut the lights off when searching for power on the radio connector and have radio off so as not to "find" the power antenna wire if your car is equipped with one. ONLY attach the lighter red/yellow wire to the radio power wire which is, SURPRISE, a yellow/red wire and there you go, all properly fixed. Good luck.

(Why do I tell people about this wonderful manual when they never bother to download and even look at it?)

Cheers,

Sr420Det

Ok cool I'll just run a wire straight to the fuse for the radio. I will download the manual if I havnt already. I wasnt using the ohm part just the dc, but its reading 18 when it shouldve been around 12-13(like I said in my last post but I think I did say ohm meter one time) but cool I know what I have to do if this starts blowing fuses. Thanks so much for your help.

Ohmster

You are welcome and I do not mind going into such detail. This is a searchable web forum and hopefully, others with cigarette lighter problems will search for and find this thread and it will help them as well as helping you. Always put your meter across the car battery when beginning to work on a car's electrical system because then you will have a base voltage of what to expect for power. If you measure 13.6 Volts at battery, then that is what you would expect to find where you need power like at the cigarette lighter. If you find 9.4 Volts, you have a problem somewhere that needs fixing pretty fast because you have 4.2 volts missing somewhere and with the power that a lighter will drain when in use, that will consume considerable power and that means heat. Something is going to burn up somewhere with a problem like that in the system.

For sure find that manual and download it. If you cannot find it then PM me and I will send you mine. It is 90Mb in size so it is not a small booklet, but the complete manual all in one file with a much needed clickable index in it. Without the bookmarks, it is nothing more than 1,259 pictures that you have to look through to find what you want. Scanning a book like that into a pdf file does not yeild searchable text, it all becomes a series of images and they cannot be searched for text, you would have to use OCR to recognize all of the text and make it searchable and that would be insane with the amount of errors you would have to correct. Thank God that someone took the time to do it already. Every question you asked came straight out of the manual and was very easy to answer because of it.

Take care, glad to be of service.