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.
Since you have been replacing blown fuses, you may want to check to see if a fuse is missing in another location or if an old blown fuse was accidentally put back into another fuse location. You will need to check and see if the alternator is charging or not. It may not be charging or there may only be an indicator light problem. From there you will need to make sure the belt is good and that the wiring at the alternator is okay.
All the fuses r good n not missing any, alternator is charging good, belt good so is the wiring, so I don’t know what to do in this case.
Sometimes the wires will short to each other and not to the bracket. If there is nothing there, it will just take time and the use of a wiring diagram to locate all items on that circuit.
So I fix the problem, it was on my o2 sensors, speedometer works fine now, but my charging light now stays on.. Any suggestions?
Hey I have the same problem, I have a 96 civic, I checked the wires that u showed on the pic, didn’t see any strip but still I taped it up, my vss is a good one but still blows the #15 Fuse as soon as I start the car, any other options? Thanks
hey man THANKS A LOT for this step by step tutorial with the photos. Helped me out a lot! only thing i had problem with was the actual bracket had a hose with 2 plastic screws attached to it and i couldnt pull those darn things out to actually be able to put tape around the bracket. Found the harness taped it up. Couldnt see where the actual tear was since the cables were pretty greased up and dirty but cleaned it up best i could and taped it up. I did a quick check by replacing the fuse starting and turning the car off and removing the fuse to see if it blew and the fuse was intact. I hope that means i fixed the issue. Thx again Sparky from South Texas!
Yeah I reinstalled the bracket, no wires were shorted though, was really hoping to find something! Many hav suggested to check grounds and also connectors like c507.. I’m gonna check all I can tomoro, I’ll post anythin I find…I’ll check fuse 15 again too, its my kids car so it hasn’t been here to check… I do believe all these issues ARE related..many posts on Honda tech site with similar issues…