EL Guage Conversion in 92 Si Help - Honda Prelude Forum

92preludesi_TX · 09-18-2005, 08:40 PM

Alright, I have been working on converting to the Electroluminescent Guage Cluster and am running into problems.

I know that the easiest way to do this is to find a wiring harness from a 94-96 prelude to use, but I was able to get a hold of a JDM wire harness to use. Unfortunately this didn't help me too much.

What I have:
95 EL guage with inverter
My original wiring harness
JDM wiring harness

The original wire harness had three connections to the guages:
-the H sized 10 pin connector on the drivers side
-the M sized 5 pin connector on top
-another sized 16 pin connector on the passenger's side

I refered to the FAQ'ed Wiring Diagram but I had some problems.

On the left will be what is supposed to be connected, on the right will be what I found and where I found it.

From Wiring Diagram:

Harness H - I modified the wiring for the H Harness as follows in red

#. Color -- use Color I used (where I found the wire)
1. Yellow -- power Yellow (old H harness)
2. Pink -- speedometer Pink (16 pin side harness)
3. Yellow -- Power Yellow(16 pin side harness)
4. Red/Black -- dimmer wire red/black(old H harness)
5. Black -- ground Black(old H harness)
6. Orange Orange(16 pin side connector)
7. No wire -
8. Light green (you need to splice the wire from the dash clock harness & run it to the pin) -- trip mileage memory
Didn't know where this would be - nothing connected
9. Red/Yellow Nothing(only found one redw/yellow line, and it goes to M harness pin 3
10. No wire Nothing

Harness J - I used a similar harness from the JDM harness, since the original wiring harness doesn't use one

1. No wire - nothing
2. No wire - nothing
3. No wire - nothing
4. Green/yellow -- right blinker -green/yellow (old H harness)
5. Red/blue -- high beam -red/blue(old H harness)

Harness M - modified the wiring on the original M sized harness

1. Blue/silver spots -- tachometer blue/silver(old H harness)
2. Black -- ground black(old M harness) - had to stick wire into the harness hole because there wasn't a wire coming out
3. Red/yellow -- high beam red/yellow(old H harness)
4. Green -- left blinker [COLOR=Red] green/blue stripe-only green left(old H harness) - had to stick wire inside the hole again, no wire coming out
5. Blue -- SRS blue(old M harness)

So after wiring this up, I connected the three long wire harness connectors under the driver's side dash -blue into the fuse box, two others into fitting connectors. I noticed a connector (like the ends of the wire harness) that was unplugged, it wasnt part of the harness, but wasn't connected to anything. This prompts me to think it needs to be plugged somewhere right? Can't remember unplugging it though.

Then I plug in to two connectors under the passenger dash. I plug in the modified H, K, and M connectors to the Gauges. I turn the key to on without starting to see what happens. The needles light up and I hear the seat belt buckle -beep-. I tried to turn on the headlights and the panel turned on, but my headlights didn't. I tried my turn signals and nothing happened. I decided to start the car and see if the tach would work. It did, but nothing else did. I then plugged in the secondary instrument panel in (fuel, temp, time, etc) to see what if I get a check engine light. No check engine light.

(I did not plug in the dimmer control, cruise toggle control or sunroof control)

So, I unplug everything, go back inside frustrated and start looking at the wiring. One thing I noticed was the Yellow power wire from Harness H pin 3 had broken. Unfortunately I don't know if it broke before I tested it or as I was unhooking it to bring it in. I fixed that wire and inspected all the others. The rest were all fine.

So. things that didn't work:
-Turn signal indicators as well as car turn signals
-Headlight dimmers as well as actual headlights
-High Beam indicator as well as high beam lights

Things that did work:
-needles (as far as I can tell, tach seemed high but worked and I didn't drive around to see if speedo worked, plus I have ordered a new VSS b/c it failed a little while ago)
-backlight once I tried to turn on my headlights or started the car
-Odometer showed a reading
-Trip meters both showed zero

So the places I see problems that I would like feedback on are these:
- Are the locations where I am pulling wires from correct?
I ask this because there are a couple of wires from the old setup that are now not used:
1 Yellow wire from the old M connector
1 Black wire from the 16 pin side connector
1 red wire with black spots from the old H connector

-Where do I pull a wire from to plug into harness H pin 8 (supposed to come from light green wire from clock harness for the trip meter?)

-Does anyone know what the Harness H pin 3 power actually powers?

-Why did I have an extra connector that wasn't part of my wiring harness unplugged under the drivers side dash; what does it go to?

-Why would my headlights and turn signals not come on?

Thanks for any help that you guys can provide. I will look at this stuff again in the morning, especially since I found that yellow power wire broken. Thanks-

Aznluder · 09-19-2005, 06:56 AM

Quote:

8. Light green (you need to splice the wire from the dash clock harness & run it to the pin) -- trip mileage memory
Didn't know where this would be - nothing connected

ITs located where your clock is. Simply remove that black cover on the Fuel/temp cluster and look the your clock harness, It would be on your far right near the speaker grill.

I'm taking my dash apart again sometimes today. I can snap some picture for you.

92preludesi_TX · 09-19-2005, 08:00 AM

Update...

Some questions that I found answers to:
-Why did I have an extra connector that wasn't part of my wiring harness unplugged under the drivers side dash; what does it go to?
--Answer: It goes to the Fuse Box and I just didn't see where since I was loosing light las night.

-Why would my headlights and turn signals not come on?
--Answer: because I didn't have that "extra" plug connected into the fuse box.

Some changes that I made (before testing again):
I reconnected the 3rd pin 'power' on the H harness.

Things I did differently when I plugged the harness into the car:
I plugged in the 'extra' connector to the fuse box.
I plugged in the dimmer/cruise/sunroof switches.

What happened:
Needles came on. (tach is at 1k instead of zero?)
Backlight came on.
SRS light came on.
When I turned on my headlights, gauges dimmed and headlights worked.
My turn signal gauge indicators do not work, but my signals do.
My highbeam indicator and highbeams worked.
I forgot to look at odometers/trip.
If I move my dimmer switch, the guages did not dim.

Once I got the harness back inside the house, I noticed another broken wire. This time it was the green/yellow in Harness M from old Harness H. I fixed this and checked everything else. I decided to take the H 3rd pin Yellow Power to a different yellow wire from the old M harness. I will also run a wire from the clock as mentioned from the reply.

Problems & Questions still unsolved:
-Turnsignal Indicators
-High tachometer
-Getting Guages to dim

-Should any of the extra wires that are around be grounded? (extras from the wiring harness that are unused and extras from the harnesses H,J,M that are not connected to anything)
-Why would my tach be high? What can I do to fix it?

Aznluder · 09-19-2005, 09:05 AM

When you say tach be High, what do you mean by that?

92preludesi_TX · 09-19-2005, 09:16 AM

well, it is reading high...my car isn't really idling at 2k...

I am not sure now if it is the wiring or the guage cluster itself. I had everything connected about 30min ago. I had to pat the back of the guages for the tach needle to go all the way to zero (with the car off and everything disconnected!0 I connected everything then turned on power. The tach stayed at zero. Then I started the car and the tach shot up to about 2k. It slowly went down to about 1.5k. I let it warm up and it still stayed at 1.5.

Is there a spring to help conteract the needle's movement or does it just return to zero with gravity?

Anyway, the turn signals worked now...they are just a matter of making sure the wires are stuck into the harness deep enough. The dimmer still doesn't work though. Everything else is fine. I can live without the dimmer working, but the tachometer is going to bother me if I can't get it working correctly.

Do any of the extra wires need to be grounded? There are a few unused ones that are just left open. Wire is not exposed, but I would think that if something isn't getting grounded correctly, it could cause the tach to keep reading high. When I revved the engine it would go up just fine, and it would come back down, just not as low as it should. Like it may be sticky? I don't know how else to describe it

Aznluder · 09-19-2005, 11:46 AM

Whatever you do, dont play with the spring inside the needle.
Thats how i broke mine. Lucky me i have 2 set of EL to play with.

92preludesi_TX · 09-20-2005, 07:50 AM

Well I got the dimmer working for the most part. I had alot of trouble getting the guages back inside the dash... I am going to have to take out the wire harnes again because I didn't extend the wires enough and so everything is to tight.

I am pretty happy with everything except the tach still never goes under 1.75k.
If anyone has any ideas what I could do to fix it, please help.

Aznluder · 09-20-2005, 11:28 AM

Bud, how did you get the dimmer to work?

92preludesi_TX · 09-20-2005, 03:21 PM

I found another wiring diagram on the board somwhere...

I think all I did to change it was connect a Red with Black dots from the old H harness to pin 9 of the new H harness.

The dimmer doesn't work perfectly. It doesn't change when the dimmer switch clicks, but it does dim a little when the headlights are on and you move the dimmer switch.

So the only thing that doesn't work now is the tach (of course I haven't tested the speed yet so hopefully that works once I get my VSS replaced).
If anyone knows how to adjust the tach, please help me out...

I am going to have to take the whole harness out again because I need to lengthen some of the wires. Right now the gauges don't fit correctly because the wires aren't long enough. But I need to be able to use my car, so I kind of put everything together temporarily.

92preludesi_TX · 09-21-2005, 03:58 PM

Here is a graphical diagram of the wiring I used for the gauge conversion for future reference...

Hope that helps people...

I found a possible cause for my tach to be 'sticky.' It is possible for the needle to rub against the back of the panel. This could cause the needle to hesitate or catch while it comes back down. I think this is my problem because as I drive the car, I realize that the meter isn't reading high, it just sticks at 1.5k. There is even a small delay as I rev the engine because the tach isn't reading a signal past the 1.5k right away.

Anyway, I will carefully look at how freely the needle can move and try to find anything that it may be catching on.