I was contemplating whether to stick this thread in the Civic forum, but I figured there are more people experienced with wiring, so I put it here. Feel free to move it...

My bf's EG gauges won't light up. I was trying to test it out yesterday, and I found two wires that I thought were connected to the gauge lights. When I measured the voltage when the headlights were off, it was 0. And when I measured it when the lights were turned on, it'd be close to 12V. But when I hooked up a little bulb, it wouldn't do anything. But this bulb worked perfectly fine when I hooked it up to a different circuit. What could be causing this?

I was also thinking the whole problem with the gauges not lighting could be due to a problem with the dimmer switch. There are three wires coming out of it. One is black, one is red/black, and one is red. Today, I was checking the continuity of the red/black wire and found out it's somehow connected to the black one, which I assume is ground. I'm not an expert with electronics, but for some reason, I feel like that doesn't seem right. Unless that is something that has to do with the dimmer switch. Can someone tell me if that's normal?

Jean

 

Is it just the gauge cluster that does not light up when you turn on the lights, or is it all the dash lights?

The red/black wire is the 12V(+) lead from the the "instrument lights" fuse in the under dash fuse box, it should read 12V(+) when the lights are turned on, and is not effected by the dimmer, the black is ground, [always, also not effected by dimmer] the red is the "ground" for the lights and is effected by the dimmer, ["Dash Light Brightness Controller"] simply put the "brightness" of the dash lights is determined by how much of a ground the "DLBC", [dimmer switch] supplies to the red wire.

Hope this helps, feel free to IM me if you need more help. 94