95 Accord LX ... no changes made to anything recently except that this started happening right around the time I was rear-ended (and I don't think that has anything to do with it)

completely sporatically ... my guages will all drop to zero for a split second and my stereo will shut off ... this literally lasts about 1/8 of a second before everything turns to normal (except the stereo has to restart if it's playing a cd)

I had the alternator checked out at the auto parts store, they said it was fine. I'm not sure where to even begin on this one ... just to show the randomness: it did it 3 times on the way to work today, but before that it hadn't done it in 4 days.

 

just a random side note, i pulled my speakers/amp out of my trunk after i got rear-ended so they wouldn't get stolen (you can pop the trunk without a key) ... so my wires are all lying back there, but i pulled the fuse out of the power cable ... could any of this be affecting anything?

 

here's a movie i took this morning of it ... note how the music shuts off when the guages dip (at the end, i'm just slowing down for a street light, fyi)

http://www.fleetmack.com/movies/2006/01.mov

 

your driving in d3 for one thing

No but really, my car did this at one point too.. and i have no idea why it did it. Only mine did it when i flicked on my highbeams, it'd do the same exact thing. I think it was because of something to do with the wiring in my trunk for my amp.. so if i were you i'd check that all out.. im assuming you have an aftermarket headunit.. so make sure none of the wires are touching anything.. tape them off if you have to.. it could be the RCA's grounding out or something. The only thing that makes it not seem stereo related is that your clock and stuff doesn't go out does it? Thats all on the same fuse.. unless its the second bigger fuse thats having power problems.

 

I remmeber when i was changing my amp one of my friends yelled at me because my wires were about to touch. So i guess that would be bad if it did. Probably one of you power, gound or rca wires touched or something. Yea like what sony24422 said. tape it all up. But fixing it? I dont know. See if time makes it go away.

 

I do car audio installs all day long and the RCA's "grounding out" would have nothing to do with the gauges cutting out like that. As far as the power wire thing goes, if you pulled the fuse that's up near the battery then there should be no need to tape the wires off but I would do it anyways, personal preference thing. The other thing you might try though is finding the remote turn on wire (usually blue and somewhere in the range of 18gauge wire) and capping or taping that off. That wire is a 12v from the deck and if that's grounding out on something it may cause the stereo to shut down; however, I doubt that it would affect the gauges. *shrugs* Best of luck and keep us updated. Hopefully shielding that remote wire helps out.

 

actually RCA's can ground out.

 

FYI .... the problem I reporeted in this post also fixed this issue ...

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1724413

electrical portion of the iginition switch needed to be swapped out.

 

Does you car have ABS? Does that dash-light flicker?

 

check to make sure all fuses under dash are in all the way. Also that the wires going into your dash are snaped in properly. <TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fleetmack &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">FYI .... the problem I reporeted in this post also fixed this issue ...

https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1724413

electrical portion of the iginition switch needed to be swapped out.</TD></TR></TABLE> this though is veary ture and I have seen stalling on a 87 lx because of that wireing too.

 

it figures, i post to close this thread as the problem went away ... and literally 20 minutes after I posted this the problem returned, it had been gone for over 4 months!! how much did I jinx myself here?

I now hope this isn't my ignition electric again as if it failed after only a few months, that means something is causing it to short out.

I will check my fuses and dash connections tonight ... however, I have noticed that after driving for awhile, when I turn on my headlights, the guages dip ever time ... however, they'll also dip on their own regardless of the headlights from time to time.

 

You say you were rear-ended not too long ago, maybe there is a loose wire shorting to GND. You can check by turning on the lights and wiggling the wires around looking for arcing or the lights going dim.

Something else you could check is the illumination wire for your radio some are orange and it should be labelled, make sure it isn't shorting to any other wires.

Hope you find the gremlin!

 

last night when i got home ... no dipping guages ... but when i turned the power to the car off, my door locks didn't unlock, when i went to push the button, there was no power to my power locks. I went to turn my key to turn the power on, and the power didn't turn on. i had to turn the car on 3 times before power actually came on. then, this morning, when i started my car, the clocks were all off (similarly to how it happens when you disconnect the battery, which i assure you, is attached). the car ran perfectly this morning.

 

That sounds like an ignition switch to me

 

that's what I was afraid of. I JUST replaced it 2000 miles ago (myself, of course, so that'll void any warranty I'm sure). How can my first one last 208K miles and my second one last 2K miles? Is something causing this to fail? I really don't want to replace this again and have it go out in another 2K miles, plus it was an enormous pain in the *** to get to!