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 cant beleave i found this site short of punching the guy in the mouth at auto zone for telling me my alternator i bought was fine and me telling him his full of it. i couldnt for the life of me find out why my battery would not charge. really thanks a million
Did you go ahead and protect the wires while you were there? The actual short is very hard to see and if you are in the very beginning stages you will not be able to see it.
Ok I tried this hoping to find the short cause this happened to me..but nothing there is no short there all the wires are fine…idk why mine shorted???
Please be sure to let us know how the repair works out for your car.
I also went through 2 alternators battling this issue. I have blown fuse #15 about once a month, replacing each time. More recently when it blew, I replaced the fuse and it keeps blowing. I will definetly give this a shot. I knew there was a short in a wire somewhere, just didn’t know where to start?