My civic is possessed!

[Matt Timion]

We were driving tonight in my civic. I'm trying to drive it as much as possible so that I can get a good MPG reading sometime soon.

Anyway, as I'm waiting at a stop light my dashboard lights cut out and my radio dies. I look at the gauge cluster and see smoke coming up.

I quickly pull over expecting the worst.

Popped the hood... nothing was on fire.

Got back inthe car and drove home.

On the entire drive home, I noticed somethign weird. The gas gauge now read 1/2 full instead of the previous 3/4 full. The coolant temperature gauge was moving relative to my engine speed, and would actually pulse with the vehicle speed sensor.

When I got home I turned off the car. I have a small alarm rigged up to let me know if i left my lights on. It was sounding off, even though my lights were not on. when I removed my foot from the brake the alarm stopped sounding.

It's obvious to me that I have a wiring issue... I'm guessing that a wire burned somewhere and now I have crossed wires, which explains why my guages were measuring the wrong thing.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to where to start? I need these demons out of my car.

[SVOboy]

Get a wiring diagram and chase the wiring on the vss and temp gauges. Sounds like it could've happened behind the cluster?

[Matt Timion]

Get a wiring diagram and chase the wiring on the vss and temp gauges. Sounds like it could've happened behind the cluster?

that's what I'm thinking... considering the smoke came from behind the cluster and only the cluster was acting up, odds are it was something down there.

Then again, my radio started acting up too, but I also think that someone ghetto-rigged my radio to run off of the wrong wire.

[SVOboy]

I had a similar thing happen when I burn up the wire on the cluster itself going from the plug to the tach. I have a wire in there all weirdly now and luckily it works.

[white90crxhf]

the fire was under the dash! check your fuse box, i suspect you'll fine something melted. they're not demons...they're melted wires!

[90CivicStandard]

I would bet that the problem will be obvious once you start taking things apart. You could have burned up a section of your cluster that fried a bunch of connections together that should have been separate.

In my experience things like this are easy to find once you start taking stuff apart. Especially if you saw smoke, that was most likely a connection getting fried behind your cluster.

Things like this some times happen with cars that have heavily modified wiring (like mine. *crosses fingers*).

Good luck! Make sure to take pictures of what you find!

[Matt Timion]

I would bet that the problem will be obvious once you start taking things apart. You could have burned up a section of your cluster that fried a bunch of connections together that should have been separate.

In my experience things like this are easy to find once you start taking stuff apart. Especially if you saw smoke, that was most likely a connection getting fried behind your cluster.

Things like this some times happen with cars that have heavily modified wiring (like mine. *crosses fingers*).

Good luck! Make sure to take pictures of what you find!

I'm hoping it's just the cluster and not the entire harness. Considering i have a highly modified harness now I really don't want to get a new harness and redo everything, so I'll most likely just rerun the affected wires.

I'll be trying to figure this out after lunch.

[Matt Timion]

I went through the trouble of removing my dash today (I've wanted to learn how to anyway) only to find that the problem is....

in my gauge cluster.

Check it out

http://www.gassavers.org/images/matt/cluster/cluster.jpg

Notice anything? How about this:

http://www.gassavers.org/images/matt/cluster/cluster2.jpg

Now what would cause the cluster to just spontaneously combust like that?

[SVOboy]

Just getting ****ty or a short somewhere else in the wiring. That's what my cluster looks like and it was a short somewhere in the dash wiring.

[Matt Timion]

Just getting ****ty or a short somewhere else in the wiring. That's what my cluster looks like and it was a short somewhere in the dash wiring.

Do you think I should get a new dash harness just to be safe?

[90CivicStandard]

It could have been caused by a number of things.

At least it was obvious what happened once you got the cluster out of there.

As far as finding the cause... I'm not sure how to do that. I would just replace the cluster if I were you. Of course, finding the source is probably a better solution.

[Silveredwings]

Your cluster wasn't conducting itself properly, how shocking. Don't get too wired about it, just go with the flow. ;)

The burned traces on the cluster are symptoms of something else pulling way too much current through them (like someones fog light 'installation'). If you just fix the symptom with a new cluster, it'll just be a matter of time before the gremlin strikes again. That ghetto-wired radio thing sounds pretty revolting. For example, if something is trying to source +12v from the wrong place like an otherwise innocent wire from your cluster, it could do this. Alternatively, if a ground came loose and the current is finding is way home through the cluster, then it can fry something. Good luck.

[Silveredwings]

OK, that's weird. First I got an error that my reply was lost, now it says it made it. ???? :o

[SVOboy]

You replied, :p

[Silveredwings]

I see.

[Gary Palmer]

Do you think I should get a new dash harness just to be safe?
Matt: Before you get a new cluster you need to find out what the traces which got cooked go to, in the wiring harness and then you need to work backward from their. Something is pulling way to much power from something that isn't supposed to be supplying power. My best guess would be that whoever put your Radio in, found a power lead for the dash cluster and tapped into it. However, it should have blown a fuse, under the dash, instead of the trace.

I wouldn't put a new cluster back in, until you find what caused the problem in the first place. I also wouldn't rewire the harness or anything that drastic.

I also suspect their may be a way you can fix the cluster you have, instead of replacing it, but I wouldn't travel that path, until you find the wiring issue.

I can take a look in my shop manual and see if I can find a picture of the console, if you'd like.;)

[Gary Palmer]

From looking at your picture's, I'd bet that the trace which got cooked is actually a ground return from the gauges, going back to the chassis. If that is the case, then something is either wired to a higher voltage than it should be, or something which normally draws a certain amount of limited power got shorted and it's now drawing a whole lot of power.

[MetroMPG]

Quite a mystery. Good detective work, Matt!

Watching with interest...

[Matt Timion]

From looking at your picture's, I'd bet that the trace which got cooked is actually a ground return from the gauges, going back to the chassis. If that is the case, then something is either wired to a higher voltage than it should be, or something which normally draws a certain amount of limited power got shorted and it's now drawing a whole lot of power.

I'm having a difficult time tracing shorts on this thing. The line that was fried is definately the cluster ground line. Unfortunately it's a common ground for just about everything from the headlights to the gauge cluster.

Perhaps tomorrow I will check to ensure that the radio is wired correctly and then reinstall. I spent a majority of the evening attempting to trace down a short, but I honestly have no idea what I'm looking for. Since it's a ground wire, a number of the ECU pins showed continuity for that ground, making the detective work that much more difficult.

At the very least I need to reinstall the dash so that my car isnt' in pieces.

The items that started acting haywire are as follows:

Entire cluster (lights,gauges, etc.)
clock
radio

I think whoever wired the radio wired it into the clock fuse instead of the original radio fuse, so they might be onthe same fuse. In theory I can assume that either the clock or the radio are at fault and base my attack on that assumption.

On a downside I accidentally reset my odometer today, so I need to fill up again to track my next MPG segment.

[MetroMPG]

On a downside I accidentally reset my odometer today, so I need to fill up again to track my next MPG segment.

Arg.

[JanGeo]

looks like it melted where the runs are thinest indicating a current draw slightly above design limits of the etches so if they separated from the circuit board backing loosing some of the cooling and they may have overheated - too many good bright bulbs with the dimmer cranked all the way up maybe and that could do it. Check the current draw when you power up the bulbs and make sure you dont have a burnt out bulb or a socked inserted with the contacts out of place causing a short.

[Matt Timion]

Diemaster helped me figure out a POSSIBLE solution last night. For those of you following along, the ground for the cluster (G401) and the ground for hte headlights (G301) are connected. IT's very possible that one of them came loose, focing all of the voltage from both areas into one ground. THe cluster was the weakest link, so it fried.

It probably also doesn't help that the stereo is wired through the wrong ground.

[Gary Palmer]

Matt: Here is what I would suggest. You know it's a ground problem, probably, and it is possibly caused by a loose or disconnected ground, somewhere else.

I would suggest getting a low resistance resistor, like 1 ohm or so. Temporarily jumper the resistor across the trace which got fried, as the defacto fuse. You should be able to then turn on the car and measure a voltage across the fuse with a DVM. Once you establish what the amount is, start disconnecting source's, like headlight's, by turning them off. If the voltage across the resistor drop's substantially, at any point, then the item you removed or turned off is where you probably need to be looking for a wire which is either not connected to ground, or is loose and not making a good connection.