I need a CRX wiring GURU's help.

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ryangt

Senior Member
hey fellas,
well my 1991 crx DX is back on the road.
When i converted to mpfi for my b18a swap i shorted out some wiring and had to replace it. I wound up yanking ALL the wiring from the car and starting over with a Clean HF harness. The interior and engine harness are from the same car and that car was running when i yanked the wiring.

My problems at the moment are small i suppose. There seems to be some grounding issue tho.

when im driving down the road at night with the headlights on, they seem very dim, and will get dimmer or brighter from hitting bumps in the road. Also they will just cut out sparatically, then when i touch the clutch, they turn back on....
also the gauges dont work right all the time, te needles will bounce around at the same time when the lights arent functioning properly.

Anyone have some ideas? The car runs great, no mechanical problems, no codes, no nothing. Just some issues with the wiring that i cant figure out.
any help is very much appreciated.
thanks guys
 
You've got a loose ground somewhere. Go back over and check every single grounding point. Remove the bolt and clean the contact and the contact point on the chassis with a wire brush or some fine grit sandpaper, and make sure there isn't any corrosion on the wires.
 
You could also have left a hot wire exposed but that would probly make your battery die alot. Most likely a ground though.
 
ground

You've got a loose ground somewhere. Go back over and check every single grounding point. Remove the bolt and clean the contact and the contact point on the chassis with a wire brush or some fine grit sandpaper, and make sure there isn't any corrosion on the wires.


A loose ground making the lights work funky sounds right maybe just shakin around and making it difficult for the harness to ground right?
 
hot wire

You could also have left a hot wire exposed but that would probly make your battery die alot. Most likely a ground though.


im not sure about this one. First off, by hot wire, im assuming you mean a live wire thats just arching or something right?

The battery hasent gone dead at all, and ive driven it around alot including a 114 mile trip where the only problem i had was the lighting issue from before...
 
Also, can someone double check my ground checkoff list

remember its a crx hf with a 1990 b18a in it.

So far my list has:

Valve cover to front radiator support

starter to battery and fuse block

the rear thermostat housing ground that ground for the fuel pump i beleive

those are the only big grounds i know of.
If anyone has any more ideas im all ears, Otherwise im taking the harness out of the car again stripping off all the loom and going over it with a ohm meter and checking every wire.
 
Hey also, i dont know if this is something or nothing, BUT i have an aftermarket mechanical temp gauge front he t/stat housing going thru the firewall and into my center console. I noticed that it was sparking against my firewall..... How is that even possible, it isnt powered.... maybe that helps
 
Thats weird, its sparking? I'd check it with a volt meter to see if it somehow has current. That alone could explain why the lights would dim.
 
thats the weird part, its only threaded into the t/stat housing, its mechanical so it has no power at all. I Think im going to uninstall that thing and see if maybe i can get it back to normal.
 
The ground for the headlights is that little rectangular white box behind the headlight attached to the fender wall. That's the ground you need to check, that can cause the dimming. Especially if you painted the engine bay or something, you need to make a bare metal contact point for it to screw in against.
 
dimming

The ground for the headlights is that little rectangular white box behind the headlight attached to the fender wall. That's the ground you need to check, that can cause the dimming. Especially if you painted the engine bay or something, you need to make a bare metal contact point for it to screw in against.


hey thanks, thats the first time ive ever actually heard that. Ill double check. I didnt paint the engine bay, its still factory teal. The white box itself, what is it? Does it ground out thru the bracket or something? Sorry im a bit confused.
 
well, i went ahead and sanded the contact points where the headlight boxes ground and it didnt do anything...

I did a little more poking around and found some interesting things going on.

First off
i can see little sparks when the clutch pedal touches the spring that pulls it back after being depressed. Not sure what that means.

second
when i click the key into the on position ( not run) but when the fuel pump starts to prime, it will also cut out when the clutch pedal touches the spring.

Weird huh? Any thoughts? Ive been told before that the ground for the fuel pump is the t/stat housing ground and the fuel pump works perfectly so im not sure what that means. I keep going back to the positve battery cable, so im going to replace that with a hand made 4 ga and 6 ga wire setup to see if that helps. The car runs, and drives alright but somethings not kosher with it and im lost at this point.
let me know what you guys think
 
replaced the negative battery cable, and that didnt help anything..... My ground points are good on the engine.
what sorta ground problem could cause sparking and dimming from the clutch pedal being depressed?
 
the pedal only sparks with the headlights on, with the lights off, the car runs flawlessly.
Anyone have a wiring diagram for the headlights and head lamp switch wiring??
Im dying to find out what this is.
 
FIXED IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok so please note the exact symptoms my car had.

I went back over the whole thing, every little wire. Ultimatly i found it to be my negative battery cable.. When i swapped the engine and tranny, the trans had a new battery cable on it, that i just used to save money... Problem was, that it wasent a 3 point grounding negative cable. It ran straight from the battery to the tranny, no stopping at the fender well.

I ran some 4ga wire from the battery to the tranny, then another from the same mounting point on the tranny to the core support ( couldnt find a bolt big enough to fit where the cable originally grounded)
Turned everything on an VIOLA perfect...

So thanks to all you guys for your help, but i ultimatly didnt give up and stumbled on the answer. This may help alot of guys out there, because im pretty car savvy and i even missed this one detail.
100_0684.jpg
 
whats up with your paint?

it's pretty clean other than that!
I like the H centercaps!!!
 
what do you mean? It needs paint. I just got the community college book today, im going to enroll just to paint my crx.... how cool is that gonna be.
 
oh and the wheels are konig remembers, the H center caps i had to get from the UK, they are 70mm.. BIG haha
 
Thats cool your gonna paint it yourself. GL with that!
 
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