We were driving tonight in my civic.

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. My radio also randomly turns on and off, and my clock flicks on and off constantly.

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

 

Whats the last thing you touched or messed with on your car that was electrical.

 

check the ground that goes from the battery to the chassis. mine was not on and it did wierd stuff like that. no smoke though goodluck

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Contender25 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Whats the last thing you touched or messed with on your car that was electrical.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I plugged the throttle cable in. Besides that the last thing I've done that is electrical is swap an engine, convert from DPFI to MPFI and obd0 to obd1... but then again I've driven 140 miles since then.

I'm wondering if it's possible that my putting the ECU back under the ECU plate could have accidentally grounded something and shorted something out.

 

Probably not (as far as the ECU)

Did you check for any blown fuses?

You probably melted something under your dash harness. Pull your dash harness and search for the fried wires

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Jonathan_ED3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Probably not (as far as the ECU)

Did you check for any blown fuses?

You probably melted something under your dash harness. Pull your dash harness and search for the fried wires </TD></TR></TABLE>

YAY!

Now I guess I get to learn how to pull a dash harness.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SiMateoAko &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

YAY!

Now I guess I get to learn how to pull a dash harness.</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's simple. Pull the dash, the harness (I'd say 50% of it) is attached to the fuse box and cluster area. The rest goes towards the center console. That should be the first place to look, then move towards the ecu. Good luck. I've had to re-wire my underdash twice now. Going on 3 times after this week.

 

ur lucky there was no fire

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FernEF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">ur lucky there was no fire </TD></TR></TABLE>

You're right... I detached the battery just to be safe.

 

I went through the trouble of removing my dash today (I've wanted to learn how to anyway) only to find that the problem is....

in my gauge cluster.

Check it out



Notice anything? How about this:



Now what would cause the cluster to just spontaneously combust like that?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SiMateoAko &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I have a small alarm rigged up to let me know if i left my lights on. .</TD></TR></TABLE>

Maybe this could be your issue? Wouldn't hurt to check

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 143MYVTECEF &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Maybe this could be your issue? Wouldn't hurt to check</TD></TR></TABLE>

Not sure if it's the issue or not, considering it's been there for over a year now and had no problems previously. Gotta check my grounds now.