Hello all. I have a 93 civic eg. My interior lights don't work (cluster nor climate control). All my exterior lights work fine.

I noticed that when i turn the headlight switch on my dimmer switch starts smoking! I tried two other dimmer switches and they do the same thing.

I checked the voltage for the 3 wires going to the dimmer and the rear as follows:
Red wire 12v
Black wire ground
Red wire with black stripe 12v

I tried jumping the Red and black wires to bypass the dimmer switch, but it pops the 10amp fuse under the dash each time.

Any help is appreciated.

 

The red wire shouldn't have 12 volts.

 

really? What should it be?

 

That is the ground side for the lights.

 

I thought that red was typically 12v and black ground. Do you know what spec is for the red wire with black stripe?

 

Red colored wires do not necessarily mean the positive (+) side.

The Red/Blk wire is power from under-dash Fuse No. 19 when the headlight switch is in the Headlight or Park position. The Red wires are used for ground in this circuit. The dash brightness is used to vary the resistance of ground coming from ground G401 to feed the Red wire to complete the interior light circuit.

If you have 12 volts on the Red wire, that means someone hooked power to it incorrectly or there is a short (for example: such as an exposed wire touching another exposed wire).

 

wow that is absolutely helpful thank you so much!

 

Found the issue, thanks for your diagram! Turns out I have two connectors around my shifter since it's an auto and I had them flip flopped.