97 Civic (Fuse related starting problem)?

I have a 97 Civic HX. Car was sitting for a while, I gave it a jump
and it started. I went to get something and when I came back the
enigne had turned off. I looked at the battery and found the jumper
cables off the battery and surprisingly touching opposite terminals of
the battery. REd clamp to the black terminal and red clamp touching
the black terminal. I put them back the right way and tried to start
the engine. Now its completely dead no lights at all in the guage
cluster. I took off the battery clamps and connected the jumper cables
directly to the battery cables. Still the same situation. I think its
a fuse that go under the hood, but really not sure which one it is.
Any ideas on how to find out which fuse it is for sure?

 

Check fuse #41, 80 Amp fuse with screw terminals in the fuse box under
the hood. Also check fuse # 52 and 53 in the same fuse box.

You really need to straighten put the polarity before you continue
working on this, best case scenario for reversed polarity is a blown
fuse, if you're not quite that lucky you could fry some very expensive
electronic components in the car, or worse yet have the battery blow up
in your face. Sulfuric acid is not all that good for your complexion...

 

So you used jumper cables from another car to this honda and they were
reversed?

They must have been reversed on both cars, because you would have seen
sparks flying when you first hooked it all up. Most likely the car
would not have started.
If they were hooked up correctly on one car, incorrectly on another the
voltage across the jumper cable would have been about 24V (two
batteries + to -, - to +) at tremendous current.

It is more likely that you may have hooked it up incorrectly on both
cars (red to black, black to red on both).
You reversing them back on one car might have done some serious damage.
If that was indeed the case, you are actually lucky you didn't do
damage to the other car.
Check the fuses but - I hate to say this and truly hope I am wrong -
strongly suspect that your computer and related components are blown..

Remco