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.
Sparky, Thanks for documenting this work. It helped me a lot. My 97 Honda Civic MIL went off and the codes were P1298, P0500, P0135 and P0141. I followed you steps and fixed the issue. Thanks!
Hi I just change my alternator thinking that’s the problem and it was not the problem car did the same as before no charging to battery and disconnect battery car died transmission engade and disengage sudendly and speedometer all over the place and engine light on and glowing bright and low really strange I will look tomorrow to see if this is the problem thanks a million to everyone on here all tops in my book cheers!!!!!
Another very thankful reader! Just about managed to get to the offending wire from under the bonnet (sorry, I mean hood) and slid a piece of plastic strip in between as insulaton. Car now starts a treat without blowing fuses. You’ve saved my little Honda from going to the scrap metal yard. Many thanks Sparky.
thanks a million for this post, this really saved me a lot of time and money.I’d the same problem. THe engine light comes on, speedo and odometer fail and whole cars electrical sytem starts to pulsate on the highway. I took it in to a shop and they “fixed” the issue by replacing fuse 15 with a 7.5 fuse. While driving it home from the shop, it blew the fuse again and i’m back to square one after spending $60! then i just googled the problem and voila sparky answers with detailed solution to the problem. i sent the car for oil change and had them tape it for me. cheers and thanks to you. you have reaaly saved me alot and had give me nice x’mas and new year present.
Have you checked the charging system voltage? Does your fuse blow? What is the code number?