Electrical grief

88 Civic 1.5litre 5 speed.

A few weeks ago the signal lights decided not to work. All fuses and bulbs
were ok, so I replaced the flasher. Everything worked well for a couple of
days then they did not work at all. So I put the original flasher back in
and everything worked again. During all this the hazard lights worked just
fine.

Now not only do the signal lights not work, the instrument cluster does not
work, but I still have dash lights, headlights, brake lights, and hazard
lights, aheater fan and radio. I have spent several hours chasing wires
looking for a bad ground, and so far have found nothing. Do I need to
continue looking or could there something else I am missing?

Thanks
Patrick

 

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Grounding problem was my first guess, but I don't own one of the older
Hondas. Hopefully somebody here will recognize your symptoms.

'Curly'

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Its called "pissing in the wind" if you don't have a wiring
schematic AND a multimeter (volt and continuity meter).
Visual examination will not always identify a good ground and
will never identify a bad connector. Plus, without that
schematic, one cannot know which are relevant grounds AND of
grounds not easily observed / known to exist.

Replacing a flasher module (temporarily) fixes problem:
suggests a loose connector or associated wire in the vicinity
of that flasher unit.

If turn signal does not work but hazard flasher does, then
turn signal / flasher relay is not the problem. Both turn
signals and hazard flasher would fail if relay was bad.
Flasher connects to turn signals either via hazard switch or
via turn signal switch - both switches connect relay to lights
in parallel. That should tell you much about where to start
looking with that multimeter. Suspect 3 wires may be green
with either blue, red, or yellow strip. Again, also required
is book from Honda with schematic. Even at $60, the book is
very much worth the price.

 

My comment is on topic so please continue reading. A few months ago my
Computer monitor lost the red color......RGB became GB and the
brightness dropped to 2/3rds. Before buying a new monitor, I borrowed
a monitor to verify that the problem was in the monitor, the borrowed
one worked fine so I reconnected my old monitor to use temporarily and
it worked RGB.

Message is clear.....unpluging and replugging connectors can
reestablish a bad connection at low voltages and low currents.

The bad connector was a 14 pin connector held in place with screws and
had been in place for months when one of the pins lost contact.

Remember, that modern cars are full of computers, not like the older
cars. Playing with the Electrical systems without knowing what you are
doing could damage a computer and cost big money.