'91 wagon charging/electrical issues.....

eh2666

My '91 civic wagon will start up and charge the NEW battery that has NEW battery cables. It has a new Alternator.

When I turn my lights on the dash instruments wig out and the car tries to die. I have checked with known good ECU's under dash fuse box (ELD) known good batteries and alternators ......anyone have any other ideas?

danz

check your grounds. remove them all and clean with sand paper and reinstall

you should have one from the battery to the unibody which then connects to the transmission.

you should have one from the valve cover to the rad support



and last and the most important, check the ground for the ECU which is attached to the engine block @ the thermostat.

SiWagon

When u say lites on.Do you mean:
1)headlites
2)dash lites only

eh2666

DAnz started there done all of that also.. I mean when I turn the headlights on.

danz

damn well if the grounds are good, im not sure...

are you 100% sure you checked the thermostat ground?

SiWagon

Does it act up when only the parking lites are ON(NOT headlite)?

eh2666

100% positive on the thermostat ground as I know thats a common problem. It's extremely intermittent when I have just the park lights on but always does it when I turn the headlights all the way on. It also spikes the temp guage to hot even tho I know it's not that hot yet.

SiWagon

Remove fuses 10,11,4,&5.
1)Turn on headlite.Does dash wig out?
2)If not.
3)Turn off hdlite.
4)Plug in fuse 4.

5)Repeat steps 1-3,but in step 4 add a different fuse from above list.

:shock: When the dash does wig out .The short or prob is in that leg of the line.

LOL(lucks of luck).

eh2666

Problem solved.....poor ground connection from the negative cable to the body.