1994 civic ex sedan


so when its real hot outside my gauge cluster will be dead. i.e. the gauges dont work and some of the lights go off (abs and cruise). the other lights do work. if i reach town and toggle with my underdash fusebox they'll come back on. then sometimes ill turn my turn signal on and they'll go back off...

this happened a couple times before and now it happens almost daily. i checked all my fuses (ALL of them). i unplugged all the harnesses i could get to with my fingers seeing as though i have no tools. theres this little gray/black box to the left side of the fuse box. if i push and pull on my fuse box while holding the mystery box down, the blinkers will work. or vice versa. i leave my blinker lights on so i can hear if they work by the clicking sound because i cant watch the dash. i have tugged on all the individual wires i could pull and push on and i cant figure anything out. i dont know if its related but my heat doesnt blow anything out when i press the recirculate button, but when i press fresh air it works... this just stopped working 2 days ago though.

anyone have any suggestions for me? its driving me crazy. i messed with it today and bent the mystery box away from the fusebox and it hasnt given me any trouble again, but i'd like it to actually be fixed instead of half assed because my mom is thinking about buying my car.

any suggestions appreciated. thanks.

 

OK, so here is what you do.....

Since the issues seem to happen when its hot out, wait until its cool out, then sell your mom the car. When she figures out the problems when it heats up again just tell her you never had that happen and throw something out like "Mom WTF did you do to my car? It was perfect when I sold you it!!"

I'M JUST ****ING KIDDING!!



Alright, you have some serious wiring issues here. Not serious like the car will self destruct in 5 minutes, but you aren't going to figure it out simply by pulling and pushing on wires or moving things around under there.

You will need the schematics for all the effected systems and start shooting wires checking for shorts. If you aren't a wiring guru it might just be easier to try to get an under-dash harness and fuse box and get rid of the **** in your car. With how extensive this seems I might even go that route. But first I would pull the dash and visually inspect the harness for any damage. Maybe it got pinched somewhere and there are intermittant shorts causing this issue. But I'd at least shoot a few wires to see if I could locate any shorts.

The best way to do this is with a multimeter with time-domain reflectometer functionality. But good luck finding a good one of these for under $300. At work here we use a 3M 900AST Multimeter, which retails for like $4,500. TDR would be the best because it can show you distance to the short.

Another primative yet effective way is to measure resistance and sort of guestimate if the numbers are coming out right. To do this you need to look at wire size you are dealing with and figure out the resistance in Ohms per inch of said gauge wire. Measure the resistance between connections and then measure the wire length as best as you can.

I wish I could give you a "golden ticket" that will quickly, and simply fix your problem but sorry, that doesn't exist in this case. If what I've discussed above just confused the **** out of you, ignore it all, buy an under-dash harness and maybe fuse box, then do a remove and replace.

If you were in SoCal I'd fix this for you, but it definitely wouldn't be free or even cheap for that matter. But taking it to an automotive electrician would cost you 3-5 times more than I'd charge.

Good luck!! Let me know if I can help in any other way bro.

 

you just confused the **** out of me. lol. well im gonna get myself some sockets and start pulling things apart. it was like 80 out with humidity here in MI and i was just getting pissed off. my frickin heater blower stopped working now. like nothing worked. well i know the area that i have to push on the fuse box to get it to work and it was on the left side. so i guess my next plan of action is to take all that out and start visually inspecting whats going on. on monday i have 7 hours of driving to do, so my car cant let me down. especially in the dark if i end up driving then.

why would this only happen when its hot out? i used to be able to turn my air on my feet and everything would cool down and id be good. ahhh this sucks. im definately not a wiring guy. im mechanical inclined though so i'll see what i can figure out.

thanks for the help, i might have some more specific questions for you in the next couple days. by buddy is an electrician so when he gets back from working in florida maybe he'll have some stuff i can use to help.

 

I'm not exactly sure why it would do this when its hot out and not cold.

Like I said, if this confused the **** out of you then your best bet would probably be to do some remove and replace. Start with the harness because it is most likely the wiring. There is a slim chance it might be the fuse box but I doubt it.

 

alright. thats going to involve removing the dash huh? well, while your here, i took a couple pictures of this plug that wasnt plugged into anything. it looks like my wiring has been messed with before because in some places there was regular electrical tape that i could tell was not from honda. i.e. green tape. the arrow just points to the back, not to the actual location of the plug. this plug is on the back of the fuse box and towards the top:


also, this electrical piece on my fusebox was REALLY hot. like almost too hot to touch. i dont know if its supposed to be like that because it does look really insulated. here's a picture:



sorry for the cell phone shots, i sold my digital camera last week and now i feel like i need it all the time.

 

ok i looked that plug up and it appears to be my horn. my horn doesnt work now, so that makes perfect sense. do you know anywhere where i can get pictures of the wiring schematics online?

 

You can download a manual from www.pdftown.com. Thats where I got most of my factory service manuals. I'd post the schematics myself but I don't have internet at home anymore and my work computer blocks photobucket and things of that nature. But I can help walk you through this.

Whoever messed with the wires previously (as you suspected because of the green tape) probably did a shitty job on something and it is now causing you issues. I will reference your pictures from my blackberry and cross reference the service manual I have to point you the right direction. But most likely even fully diagnosing this issue might require the removal of the entire dash so you can access all the cabin wiring behind it.

Just so I can find what that 2pin connector goes to, what are the wire colors on it? I could see in the picture.

 

they are two green ones. im pretty sure theyre the horn, but i cant find what they plug into. im going to the junkyard down the road (its five minutes away) tomorrow hopefully with a friend that has tools and im gonna pull the fuse box off from another car and im gonna take and much as i can from under the dash and have a look and see if i can find where that plug is supposed to go. id like to get this fixed, its fine for now but im in trouble when it rains or its cold in the morning because i have no defrost. ill see what i can figure out tomorrow im going to get some schematics off from that sight when i have another minute tomorrow too. thanks again!

 

FIXED. i cant believe i noticed the problem
so the socket where the fuse goes in wasnt having good contact with the fuse. turns out everything was fine except the two pieces of metal (well two top, two bottom) were bent apart. heres how its supposed to look :
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heres how it does look:
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| |
so i twisted one of the legs of the fuse sideways so it makes better contact with the wide female end.

when i was jiggling the fuse box back and forth, the fuse was moving around and wasnt making good contact. problem solved. my blower motor is out now and i put a fuse against the positive and negative contacts on the plug and the fuse blew so i know theres power to it. now... a little troubleshooting and car will be good to go

 

blower motor works now. hit it with screwdriver handle and it started working. everything works 100% now.

 

Awesome, I'm glad it was something simple like this... With what you described it seemed like serious wiring issues, which can be difficult to troubleshoot.

You can get in there with a small flat head and bend those back in so its better. Be sure to disconnect the battery before doing this.

 

hey buddy, not sure if u still use the site. i seem to have the same prob, i would push on the fuse 4 under the steering wheel when the battery light came on and it would go off, do u think its possible i have the same problem, i have 2004 honda civic lx

cheers