i've got a buddy with a 90 civic std. the fuse marked 'alternator/solenoid valve' keeps popping. the car will not start. he's traced most of the wiring to look for dead shorts, but really needs to know what other circuits are connected. anyone had this problem before.

any tips or advice appreciated. we'll be delving farther into the hunt later in the week. so it may be something simple, but a place to start hunting would be great.

thanks
ben brotherton

 

hehe put in a bigger fuse!hehe

huhuhhhuhhuhu hey beavis its on fire!

 

i say, smash your nuts with a hammer.....

 

yeah, he already tried that and got 'puff the magic hidden dragon smoking under the dash'.

the fuse not the hammer.

 

make sure the bat terminals cannot touch anything. Often the intake (if he has an aftermarket intake) can contact the bat terminal. so check that.

From what I see the only thing the wiring for the alt goes through is the ignition.

 

my friend had a similar problem with a circut we traced alot of the wires and could not find nething he picked up a short finder at a parts store.. (kinda pricey) but it worked awesome basicly u plug it in and run this thing along your car and it pretty much finds the short for ya... u might want to try that....

 

on those year civic/crx honda put the battery in the most aftermarket intake unfriendly place possible. MANY people have had problems with this, and i have heard many stories about peoples cars catching on fire because of it. to help out i wrapped the area of my intake near the battery with electrical tape - looks stupid, but better safe than sorry. check your alternator wiring, its not that hard to follow. im guessing you have a short somewhere. i remember accidentally shorting the pos terminal of the alternator to my block(ground) with a wrench and i heard a very unpleasant *pop*. the fuse that popped was one of those big *** ones in the fusebox in the engine bay.

 

I've grounded the alt wire with my wrench on 2 different cars and the zero fuses blew both times. And both of those cars were 4th gen civ hatches with battery in the hatch so I didn't ned to worry about that fire problem.