Few Electrical Issues. Any relation?

Chance EG

New Member
Hey CC.

I have multiple small electrical failures/problems in my 93 Civic:

The fuel gauge has been stuck to "full" since I got the car. The ONLY time I've seen the fuel gauge move was after I had to aggressively shake/rock the car to get a wheel off of a hub that had rusted together. The fuel gauge worked for 2 startups, then went back up to full.

The light in the trunk/hatch of the car is dim, and almost never at full brightness. This was the first electrical problem I tackled with the car. I replaced the bulb, the housing, cleaned the copper connector, and finally just cut the wire and installed a new harness. After all of that, the light was still normally dim (the light will rarely, randomly be full brightness).

I've had intermittent problems with power to a dome light that I DIY installed. Either full brightness or nothing (normally works, however has gone off/on for no real reason as well).

The "brake" light on the dash that indicates when the handbrake is on used to not work at all before I pulled out the sunroof motor (which also had intermittant problems, but the sunroof had been severely neglected before so that's probably part of the problem), however now the light is on 24/7 while driving.

So, basically a wide array of mostly minor electrical problems. My main question here is if there could be a common denominator for all of these. I'm especially considering this due to the intermittent nature of the problems. It leads me to think that there's a ground somewhere that is faulty/flaky, or maybe the fuse box... I don't really know enough about the electrical makeup of these cars to know. Any ideas are greatly appreciated, I'm getting the car back from paint in the next couple of days so I really want to get everything working nicely.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
 

HeX

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Hey, Chance. I tweaked & shortened your title so its easier to see the issue in all site views.

Brake Light: are you sure you're not low on fluid? That would trigger the light to stay on.

Fuel Gauge: Have you inspected the fuel pump or whatever part it is that reads the fuel level?

Dome light: Thats kinda common for the dome light. Play with the contacts to ensure good contact including where the screws go as that grounds the housing. Are you sure that the door switches that trigger the done light arent getting stuck?

Trunk Light: Check its ground if it has one (I dont remember) or try grounding it yourself to test if it improves it.

Overall: All I can suggest is to inspect the harnesses at the gauge cluster, possibly clean the contacts then add some dielectric grease if you spot any issues. Are you having any other issues elsewhere? Fortunately, none of those issues you mentioned are serious.
 


XpL0d3r

I had a Civic once.
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Check all grounds. Check the main harness of damage or frayed wires.

As for the gauge cluster... Remove the cluster and unplug connector B from the rear of the cluster (see diagram). Turn the key to ON II. The needle of the gas gauge should fall to Empty. If not, the gas gauge or the cluster itself may be bad.



Assuming your cluster is good, it sounds like you have a handful of wiring issues that need to be tackled. I'm with HeX on the brake light and dome light for sure
 
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