The other day I was having a friend from cali help me try to correct the wiring for my reverse lights which have never worked. It's a 95 ex 4dr with a d16z6 mated to a standard transmission. The lights have never worked. I replaced the switch about a year ago when I realized they didn't work. We put the car in reverse, with the key the in the ON (II) position and checked both sides of the plug with a multimeter, and got approx 12v on both sides. So we figured everything was working fine with the switch. Upon taking the car out of reverse, key still in the ON position, there is still 12v on both sides. We had tried to retrace the wiring to correct the problem, but still could not determine the problem. His friend mentioned something to him about there being a relay in the eg civic sedans which is totally unique because it wasn't in the integras or the 2dr/hatch civics. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

The back up light switch sits atop the transmission and has two wires: Yel and Grn/Blk. Are you testing voltage on those two wires?

Are the light bulbs burned out? Do the bulb receptacles get voltage?

There's no relay.

 

To my knowledge, the bulbs are not burnt out. But yes, we tested both sides of the switch. And on my transmission, both wires are green w/ blk. One of them later turns into a yellow wire, but at the switch itself, they are the same color.

 

With key ON and the transmission not in reverse, obviously there should be voltage on only one side of the switch, so the switch must be bad. But this problem alone would cause the reverse lights always to be on, which they are not. So there must be second problem where voltage cannot reach the bulbs (assuming they are not burned out). This could be due to a broken Grn/Blk wire somewhere between the switch and bulb receptacle or a bad receptacle. Alternatively, the Grn/Blk wire and receptacle are fine, but the black ground wire for the bulb receptacle is bad.

 

Well, when we were testing the voltage with the tranny out of gear, the harness was unplugged from the switch. So, with the switch technically out of the equation, we were testing the end of the harness that the switch plugs into. Granted, my battery was near-dead, the multimeter showed well over 12v (between 14 and 17v) on both sides of that harness plug.

 

This likely means the switch connector is bad.

Pierce the insulation of the upstream and downstream wires at locations distant from the connector to test for voltage. Now does only the fuse-side wire have voltage?

 

I will have to look into that. I will pierce the insulation and see what I can find out.

 

if you had positive voltage on both sides of the connector with the switch out of the circuit, there shouldnt be pos voltage on the GRN/BLK wire if the switch is disconnected, a cause for that could be a short to power in the wire coming from the reverse switch to the bulbs, which would make them burn out initially

 

If the OP still measures voltage on both wires distant from the switch plug, then ^this should definitely be looked into.

 

We're gonna take a closer look at it next week to try and narrow down the problem and HOPEFULLY correct it. This **** has been nagging me for a year now and I'd really like to get it fixed =c(

 

Guy came down yesterday and we went through some more of the wiring. He said he ran two new wires from the dash harness to the plug on the strut tower, and that fixed it as they work properly now. Still not sure what the issue was exactly.