Hi guys,

I suffered the fault described in here http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/tsb/civic/x99-029e.pdf

The wires from C115 rubbed the intake bracket and frayed .... but are also now soaked in oil.


What can I do to clean them so that I can hit them with heat shrink or electrical tape?

 

Brake cleaner.

 

To seal them after your brake cleaner cleanup, unless you want to cut and solder wires to do heat shrink.... You can get liquid electrical tape. It will seal up the insulation better than just electrical tape alone. Can be found in many stores, here in Canada it comes up under home depot, amazon, and Canadian Tire. I suspect you might even find it at your local Walmart in the states.

https://www.permatex.com/products/ad...ectrical-tape/

Stuff is a bit smelly and it's a bit toxic so gloves are a good idea. After you coat the exposed wires with it and let it dry, then you can wrap it in electrical tape and loom it and it will be darn close to new and sealed up properly without cutting any wires.

 

Copy on Brake Cleaner.
I gave up on google (everybody had different warning and suggestions) and started using intake cleaner (hopefully a tad less bad on plastic?)
Because I was told the intake cleaner I got left 0 residue.


How the H do you guys reach up in there to wrap an individual wire?? just getting some tape around the entire thing to keep it away from the metal bracket was hard enough.
I'd love to splice in replacement wire but that would be an even bigger b****.

I'll def check out the liquid tape. Do you think I can just coat the entire mess in that stuff as one glob and then wrap with tape? I love my honda, but I think I got bigger hands than the guy in Canada who put this thing together.





Dumb questions: When the wires are sealed will the MIL stay away (after battery disconnect) or do i need to keep blowing fuses to see if I did this right?
Is the car safe to drive or am I risking blowing up my ECU?

 

Had I not asked you guys, I would have been cutting heat shrink, wrapping over a wire, then cutting another and placing the cut 180 degrees from the first... and praying they stuck together as they shrunk!
Thank you for the help!



Replaced the fuse and removed the batt cable for 5 min.... speedo seems slightly delayed but functional...no MIL .... will report back if anything changes.

FYI anyone looking for a dealer to solve this issue, I was quoted 60 dollars plus tax

 

I am not familiar with the 6th gen (96-00) wiring harness. I do know there is no break at the passenger side shock tower like there is on the previous generation. So I am of the impression it goes from the passenger side firewall under the battery to run all the way behind the intake manifold to end at various sensors etc.

If at all possible I would look for the zap straps that are clicked into holes that hole the harness in place. If you can unsecure those and unplug all the end plugs you might be able to pull the harness down from it's home location to be able to work on it proper.

You are going to have to coat each wire individually first and foremost, then if you want to glob them altogether that is your choice even though I wouldn't. I would then tape them together myself, then reloom etc and then get it put back into place and do whatever is recommended in the TSB to prevent it from happening again.

I do have smaller hands but I also know there is a massive amount of room from underneath behind the intake manifold. I suspect you have the same IM brace which is only 4 bolts to remove to get even better access up to that part of the wire harness.

Once again, I am not as familiar with the 6th gen wire harness so really don't know if you can get the kind of slack I am imagining might be possible.

Also if you can get the slack by unplugging all the sensors, make sure to tag all the plugs so there is zero chance of mix up when you go to plug them all back in.

 

My good Sir,

I think part of the problem is I have no lift. snaking my arm in there even with the IM bracket off (only 2 bolts on my 98!) is... just the dexterity to loop 2 inches of tape through the tiny space between the wires... not easy heh.

As it stood I could only see one which frayed, and needed to get to work so I wrapped the whole mess.... so far no issues but I know I did it the half (or even 1/4th) *** way.

This weekend I might take it apart.. I had not considered unraveling more of the conduit to get room to work... for some reason that just seemed scary (I have no idea why)...



I'm really grateful for the help guys. My car looks like hell and isn't in the best shape, but it still reliably gets me from A to B and is worth a few multiples of the scrap price... but I was very scared I would fry my ECU if I didn't fix this soon (and then I think it probably would have been just scrap!)

 

I understand not having a lift, most of us don't. There are a fortunate few who do.

I was thinking floor jack and jack stands so you can crawl under the car.

You do need some time indeed.

As far as your ECU, reading the TSB, looks to me like it tends to blow fuses probably to protect things like the ECU.

Best of luck.

 

Your best friend in this case is, as mentioned, liquid electrical tape, once put on there is no need for other tape, or any other coverings.

The only other thin I can think of is to de-pin each lead and slip a piece of shrink tube over the frayed part of wiring and shrink it down, in this case I would use "sealing" shrink tube, has what amounts to liquid electrical tape inside the tube that melts under heat and makes nan airtight/waterproof seal, this is probably the best way but is time consuming and will require tools and skills to properly de-pin terminals without breaking anything. 94