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.
The cut wire was found under the intake manifold.
Where did you find the cut wire? It may help some one else.
Problem solved….a wire was cut off and due to this all problems happened at cold engine.
Great article!!
I would take the time to inspect and wrap the harness shown in the article. At the bare minimum I would move the harness to see if the problem goes away temporarily.
I have the same symptoms with my Civic 1.4 iS MY 1998, but in my case all problems disappear after the engine warm up. When the engine is cold, the lights are pulsating, speedometer is not working and while driving it interrupts. Once the engine warms up, speedometer works, pulsating disappear and no interruptions. The fuse 15 is OK.
What I have also observed is that if I will remove the ECT connector (temperature sensor) while engine is cold, the lights are not pulsating anymore.
Any help is appreciated!
Thanks