Honda Car Forum

Hello Guys,
first post here and hopin' it's gonna get me out of trouble since winter is coming.!
I've been the happy drive of this lowered 'cord '96 EXR coupe.

A few weeks ago, coming back home at night, an Acura nsx among others were making me light signals from behind I saw in my rearview mirror.
Realized after that that I had no more taillights (speedo dash lights were out previously but this this is all messed up so I didn't really make much of it).
Next morning, going out for work, battery is out and dimmer relay buzzing constantly. Removed the noisy relay, boosted the car, went to work and charged the battery during the day.
I went to a local honda spare parts garage and changed the said relay, not making noises, but still without taillights.
Checked fuses, 3 times
Went back to that honda scrapyard, the guy went under the dash and came back out with an electronic card and told me to re-fuse the cracked welds under the board. Did that and gained a high-beam that I've never seen working before.
Printed all circuit schematics and tried to analyse it with intelligence.
Checked the combo switch wires for signal and it was alright.
Playing 'round and 'round with that, I decided to pass a new wire from the combo switch wire with the signal all the way to the red/black wire of one of the taillights.
Then I got happier since I had taillights again.
I'd say one week after that, brake lamp indicator in the dash tells me something is wrong with my brake lights. (as of today, i changed the bulb in the rear window and this indicator is not present anymore)
So, then, I wanted to understand why oh why did that brake light signal was adding to the christmass tree in my dash.
Checked the symptoms with a steel bar on my brake pedal and I was surprised to see that both levels of the brake lights were activated even with only the taillights combo switch on.
Checked this out with somebody else playing with the brake pedal and there is a slight difference in light intensity taillights vs brakelights.
At least, when the taillights are off, pressing the brakes does light everything in the back.
2 days ago I decided to use the same trick as for the taillights so I went under the dash and passed a new wire from the brake switch to the back of the car but checking for voltages, I saw that there was 9.5V with taillights, 11.5V with brake lights. I wanted to use that wire to replace the old wiring totally but I would have had no improvement.
Yesterday night, I went to the electronics shop and bought transistors and variable resistors in order to detect that voltage change and light the brake lights through a relay but talking with my father, electronics engineer, I realised that the outcome would probably be that with A/C, heater and other stuff pumping power, the voltages would problably change and the set point would be off, then my brake lights would not light up. Which is not the best in an emergency.
So now, I'm running out of options, I know the best would be to check for bad connections, grounds and such, but it's getting colder and colder and I like to do something else during the weekends.
Thanks for your advice !
E.T.

update,
Dumped out the idea to install adjustable resistances and transistors to isolate
the brake signal and make whole new wiring,
Gonna try to find where the tail lights wire leaks on the brake lights wire.
Will probably do this by cutting the original taillights wire after the spot I already brought a new wire from the combo switch to the taillights themselves, Hope the position lights in the front of the car will stay on as they should after this wire cut.
Will post more after the break
;p

Problem fixed !

just washed my hand and thought I didn't have supper.
Well, alarm system got tore apart in the process, it's not in the state of a big pile of wires and tie-wraps....1996 car, never used it anyway.

many tests...
finally cut the break lights wire from the brake switch
had a new wire there from a few days ago...
tried to plug it just before the split in the trunk for the back window brake light... still had the leak from tails to brake lights..
then just brought my new signal wire to everywhere it needed to go (trailer, tails and back window) and voila

just thought this could help somebody even nobody replied me !
have a good ride !