Rep Power: 0

I bought an 01 Civic as a winter beater. A/T trans was bad so I took it away for $400. I Rebuilt the trans and now that I've driven it, the car seems great otherwise.

My issue:

The car came with no stereo, it was removed before I bought it, harness left dangling. I've got no tail lights, marker lights. console or instrument cluster lights. Park indicator lights work as well as all the warning indicators. Gauges function properly otherwise. Brake lights work when the pedal is pressed.

I checked all fuses. They are all good. I went over my turn signal switch with some data I found online, and Ohm'd out the terminals for each switch position. All is well there.

I can find wires in the connectors for the cluster than cooperate with the flicking of the headlight switch on/off.

I CAN make all the lights (Tail, Marker, Cluster, Dash) work when I connect the RED/BLACK head unit wire to a power source. Dimmer dial on the cluster works as well, but I cannot get this to work with the headlight switch as it should.

I checked for continuity from the pin that supplies power to the cluster lights and traced it around the printed circuit board. Everything Seems ok. No indications of a fried trace.

I'm lost here. The headlight switch seems good, the cluster seems good, but I cannot figure this out. Is this simply because I don't have a head unit in the car ATM? Which of the wires from that circuit would relate to the operation of the cluster?

Get what I'm saying? Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks.

Derek.

 
Rep Power: 518

So if you supply a B+ to the red/blk the lights do work? Even the tail and park lights?

Check fuse #2 (15A) in the engine compartment fuse box.

Find the 'tail light relay' in the dash fuse box.

The above fuse supplies power to that relay and all those missing lights, and the headlight switch supplies ground on (blue #13 at the switch) to turn that relay on.

A good wiring diagram would be pretty handy too.

 
Rep Power: 518

Found a diagram in this link that may help:
http://www.justanswer.com/honda/1ra0...verything.html

The two branches just below the taillight relay (says to see image 15 and see image 114-1) lead to the park/tail lights and the rest of the dash illumination, switches and whatnot.

 
Rep Power: 0

Soooo... this is silly. I spent all day chasing a problem that wasn't really there. I thought that the under-dash relay was in place, but didn't realize that there were two relays side by side. One of them was missing, only the starter relay was still in place! I popped a relay in and now everything works...

It wasn't that easy, and I can see why the relay might have been removed. As soon as you'd turn the lights on/off or bump the car, all the lights would flash as if they were tied into the hazard circuit or something. Turns out that the no longer functional remote start/security system was still tied in. I dismantled and removed the remaining pieces of that from under the dash, tidied everything up and now it all works as it should.

Sometimes you gotta step back and have someone else weigh in so you can clearly re-trace your steps. Thanks for your help!.

 
Rep Power: 518

I would not have expected the relay to be missing




Glad you got it figured out