This 1996 Honda Civic came in with a complaint of the battery going dead. I checked and sure enough it was not charging and based on experience I checked to see if the speedometer was working. It was not. Knowing that this is a common fault with Civics, I checked to see if fuse #15 was blown in the interior fuse box and it was. Time to rack the car up. The following pictures are from underneath the car looking up past the driver’s side half shaft assembly.
The wires above the bracket that braces the intake to the block commonly rub through the insulation until a short circuit is made.
The bracket is easy to remove, just two bolts.
If you will double click on the following picture you can see where the Black/Yellow wire is melted.
This picture shows where the wire has shorted out against the bracket and left a rusty arc mark.
If you double click on the following picture you can see the bare copper wire exposed on the Black/Yellow wire. I took a short piece of electrical tape and wrapped it around the one wire.
Then I wrapped the harness with friction tape.
I also wrapped the bracket with friction tape. I installed the bracket and a new wire tie for the harness attached to it. Replaced the fuse and checked the system. All okay.
Update: Although the harness rubbing on the bracket in this article is a very common problem on these vehicles, there have been several reports in the comments that Civic owners are finding shorted oxygen sensors as another cause of fuse #15 blowing. So you may want to check the wiring around the oxygen sensors to make sure they are not shorting out on the exhaust. If no problem is found there disconnect the oxygen sensor wiring to see if the short will go away.
I also had a mechanic replace a (probably perfectly functional) alternator over this. At least I know now. Thanks for this information!
You have to be able to get under the car using a lift , ramps or jack (with jack stands of course). After getting under the driver’s side of the car look up past the driver’s side half shaft and you will see the bracket in question. From there just follow the info in the post above. If you feel you cannot do this then just print the post or copy the URL Address, and take it to your preferred mechanic. Good Luck
I’m having the same problem. THe engine light comes on, speedo and odometer fail and whole cars electrical sytem starts to pulsate. the car drives fine, tho. I took it in to a dealership and they “fixed” the issue by replacing fuse 15 with a 7.5 fuse. While driving it home from the dealership, it blew the fuse again and i’m back to square one after spending $130! I hate import cars because its so damn hard to do anything to them for less then $100! So it sounds like this post maybe the problem, only I don’t know how to do it!
After replacing the VSS and temporarily fixing the problem then having a mechanic diagnose and “fix” the problem with replacing the alternator, one internet search reveals that this is the problem.
It took me an hour to fix, and was virtuall free.
Wish I’d found this earlier.
hey thanks a million for this post, this really saved me a lot of time and money. cheers 🙂