Rep Power: 0

Hey, I recently installed a head unit in my girlfriends 2002 Honda Civic. Her dad started the car earlier today, and he said he smelled a hint of smoke.

The radio still works fine, but the dash lights and heater/ac lights do not work. However, when you turn the dimmer switch, it still dims the light up display for the miles.

I checked the small lights fuse, and pulled the stereo back out to make sure there were no hanging wires, but that's as far as I've gotten. I'm not exactly sure what other fuses to check for this certain year, as I've googled and forum searched and have only found this problem in other years, and people are just giving fuse numbers to check, not the actual fuse type. What's my next move?

Thanks in advance

 
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I just checked fuse 8 (ACC Radio) and 18 (ACC Cigar.) Both were fine.

 
Rep Power: 312

You probably hooked up the illum/dimmer wire which either blew a fuse or caused some damage. Check the backup fuses under the hood.

 
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Neither of the orange wires are connected

 
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I checked the backup fuse also, that's fine too. So 4 total fuses i checked. 2 inside, the ACC/Radio and ACC/Cigar.. and 2 under the hood, Backup and Small Lights

 
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The battery may or may not be dying fast as well. I've been sitting in the car for a half hour or so and now it won't start up. I'm not too familiar with the car, but that definitely seems out of the ordinary

 
Rep Power: 307

The smell was most likely the dimmer circuit going south from your connections made.

The dimmer circuit would be protected by the small lights fuse, if it is o.k. you may have damage done already.

 
Rep Power: 0

Ok, I'm going to take the whole gauge cluster out and see if i can solder a jumper on the back if it is a simple blown connection.

Just to be clear, in case i do fix it... the 2 orange wires coming FROM the metra wiring harness are the only wires i should not connect correct? (They weren't connected, but weren't exactly secured properly either.) Or is there a dimmer or illumination wire coming from the head unit that I should disconnect also?

 
Rep Power: 307

IIRC orange and also orange/white, not sure. Check the chart provided with the harness, look for "dimmer" or "illumination"

The factory colors to avoid are RED & RED/BLK.

Isolate the ends of the Metra harness unused wires.

 
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Ok I isolated the orange and orange & white from the metra harness already.

As far as I remember those were the only 2 from the metra harness that I did NOT connect. Which means that the red and the red & black are most likely connected to their matching color on the harness. Should I just disconnect and isolate those completely? If so, this is obviously the cause of my problem.

Thanks for the answers. Appreciate the help.

 
Rep Power: 307

You can look straight inline across the plugs and see if they go to red & red/blk on the factory side.

If they were not connected... then maybe they were not isolated and shorted to something ?? They should be fine as long as isolated at the cut end of wires

 
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Ok I took out the gauge cluster and took some pictures. This doesn't look repairable to me, but hopefully I am wrong.

 
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This is fixed. The copper in the top (pictured) burnt part wasnt actually broken. The middle circular was.. so i soldered a wire from two points on that route and reconnected them. It worked.

Still have no idea what the small circed thing is lol

Thanks for the help

 
Rep Power: 307

Great job on the PCB fix, that trace looks rather large and easy to work with. Been adding jumpers to repair damaged traces for years now (used to get them a lot on TVs with lightning damage)

 
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Hey, after having the same problem I took apart the cluster and now am ready to solder... since im not all to smart when it comes to soldering on to pcb boards, what 2 points exactly did you solder the wire to? sorry im retarded when it comes to this stuff

 
Rep Power: 307

^Are your traces damaged and lifted like the pix ?? Use a magnifier and look close for breaks in the copper trace or use an ohm meter.

 
Rep Power: 811

this is why i always completely remove the dimmer/illum wires from both sides of the harness connectors before i install anything. this time was easier cause the sony deck i got did not even have these wires. i just took the wires out of the oem-to-aftermarket harness and plugged it together. no reason at all to be hooking them up even if the deck supports auto-dim. most of these decks are usually so dim anyway that you want it full bright at night.

 
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Yes, they are damaged in the exact same places as in the picture. Do I just pick the two soldered points on either side along that broken trace and solder a new replacement conductor such as a wire?

 
Rep Power: 307

I would try to locate the break(s) and make small patches to them. You can scrape the trace to apply solder directly, just use caution not to cause more damage with the iron,

 
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My cluster has the exact same burn pattern. When I use the blinker, both lights on the cluster light up light I have the emergency flasher on (only one exterior blinker flashes though) did you have that problem ? I'm thinking mine melted a little more possibly ? Did you determine what caused the problem ? want to make sure I don't fix it and some short just melts it again ? Lastly did you jump from the start of the burn to the end or just where you could tell it was a broken connection ? Thanks !

 
Rep Power: 517

Your radio install caused it.

Remove radio and disconnect or cut and tape all 'illumination' wires from the jumper connector.

There's another thread in this forum where someone shows the repair job they did on the cluster circuit board, search for it.