stupid question... forgive me... - Honda Prelude Forum

HPRpreludeSOHC · 10-15-2002, 04:11 AM

Ok, I'm dumb... I don't have a manual for my car either, but what does it mean when the brake light lights up in the gauge cluster? You know the little picture of your car that has the doors and stuff? Also, my trunk light stays on all the time now when I'm driving and I know my trunk is closed shut. Where is the sensor so I make it stop... hahahha I know many of you may laugh at me for such mundane questions, but yes, please help...

Oh, one more thing... I don't know if any of you had this problem with your 3rd gens before, but that temperature fan control knob broke off. Any quick suggestions to fix it temporarily?

cifer6425 · 10-15-2002, 05:40 AM

for brake light: try adding brake fluid.

89Blu4WS · 10-15-2002, 06:41 AM

Make sure your parking brake is released. My 89 had problems with the cables binding at the rear calipers. Order a new knob from the dealer. You will never find a good used one at the junkyard.

on the trunk light.

YK86 · 10-15-2002, 10:15 AM

I think he means the light for the brake lamp bulb. You probably have a bulb that's burned out or has corrosion on the connection.

Kbulls91Lude · 10-15-2002, 11:49 AM

First the easy part. For the fan knob, hopefully you still have the broken pieces, including the metal sleeve from the switch shaft. Use super glue to get all (or most) of the pieces back together with the metal sleeve in there. Next, to strengthen it, get some epoxy weld stuff. the stuff in the double syringe that you mix together and it turns to HARD plastic in 5 mins. Spread this all around the outside of the glued pieces, not too thick to maintain clearance. Turned out stronger than the origional for me.

Now the lights you're talkin about are the ones on the safety indicator, the trunk & brake lamp indicators. b/c if its your trunk "LIGHT", how do you know?

you know the refrigerator light thing.

The trunk switch is part of the latch (hard to see & get to). The brake light sensors are the square plugs between the bulbs. If one of those is unplugged OR a bulb is burned out, that indicator lights. After you make a repair there, you have to turn ingition off & on to reset the circuit to see if that fixed it.

Here's the longshot. Check the trunklight just in case. Fold the backseat down to verify the light is going out. If it is, the switch is OK, but you still have the brake lamp & trunk indicators on, Possibly there's a problem with the safety indicator module thats mounted somewhere on the instrument panel. Don't know if its swappable tho, I'm just going by wire diagrams.

PreludeNYC · 10-15-2002, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HPRpreludeSOHC
Ok, I'm dumb... I don't have a manual for my car either, but what does it mean when the brake light lights up in the gauge cluster? You know the little picture of your car that has the doors and stuff? Also, my trunk light stays on all the time now when I'm driving and I know my trunk is closed shut. Where is the sensor so I make it stop... hahahha I know many of you may laugh at me for such mundane questions, but yes, please help...

Oh, one more thing... I don't know if any of you had this problem with your 3rd gens before, but that temperature fan control knob broke off. Any quick suggestions to fix it temporarily?

I had the same problem, by making my horn louder and releasing all the air in the rear tires, the problems went away... easy DIY fix.

Jose

.....j/k don't actaully go do that

HPRpreludeSOHC · 10-19-2002, 04:22 AM

sweet stuff. I checked my brake lamps at night and one did burn out, so I'm going to replace to hopefully make that safety indicator turn off. On the other hand, I lost the rest of my fan switch knob pieces, so I think I just pick up a new temperature cluster from the junkyard. I don't know if its possible, but I'll see if the 2nd generation integs would work. As for the safety indicator for my trunk, I'm going to see if I can disconnect the wire individually that connects to the gauge cluster so I can say bye bye trunk indicator.

YK86 · 10-19-2002, 11:55 AM

Assuming the Preludes are the same as Accords, if you look on the trunk latch, there should be a small thin tab. When you open the trunk , tthe tab comes in contact with a small "post" which turns on the trunk light and tells the safety indicator the trunk is open. The tab maybe bend or not moving properly.

Kbulls91Lude · 10-19-2002, 03:54 PM

And the wiring for that indicator on the cluster is solid state so I don't think you can just disconnect it.

HPRpreludeSOHC · 11-04-2002, 11:17 AM

about the wiring on the gauge cluster... anyone happen to know what the resistance rating is in ohms for the speedometer/tachometer/fuel/temperature gauges are... I've looked all over the Haynes manual and am able to find the diagrams, but no numbers... I could go to the dealership, but I really don't want to deal with those guys.

merlindavis · 11-05-2002, 01:46 AM

if you want that whole picture of the car their to not light up at all, just unplugt it... you won't get any of them to light up... otherwise, it's not too hard to trace which wire needs to go away to disconnect the trunk light... next time i have my cluster out, i'll look for ya and take some pics... i need to replace my gas/temp gauges anyways, so i should be in their screwing around pretty soon... already was in once and made my gauges light up blue now instead of green, converted the entire dash except for the hazard button (red), the defrost button on the cc (red), and the fan power lights... also, on the defrost/feet button, the defrost symbol is still red, and the dude sitting with the feet arrow is blue... screwed up my gas and temp gauge cause i put on the coloring differently for just those gauges, i know a better way to do it now... i'll end up buying a whole new cluster, and i'll switch over my entire gauge cluster lighting to LED instead of changing the coloring on the gauges themselves...