Electrical issue 1990 130k
 

Hi forum

Back with another question. Trying to keep this 1990 with 130k on the road.

Its an electrical issue: the seat belt chime won't turn off (even when belt is buckled) once the car is started and the radio sometimes doesn't work (it will come on however if you turn on the headlights). I've looked through the forum and don't see a past post on anything similar. Anyone have an idea what it might be or a first step to troubleshoot?

Thanks as always.

Unrelated electrical problems happening together often come from grounds being loose or corroded. It might even be something chewing through the wiring harness?

For the seatbelt chime, check the wiring plug at the buckle. Wires coming loose? Corrosion?

You might want to get a shop manual for the wiring diagrams to troubleshoot this stuff.

That's helpful. I'll start in on it this weekend and report back

Hi Jim

I'm pretty sure its a ground somewhere. The seat belt apparatus looks fine. I see the one ground coming off the battery to the frame but I can't find the other in the engine bay. Is it coming off the transmission compartment somewhere? Any idea where to look?

Seems more likely to be a ground for the wiring harness through the car. I never had a 1990 so I don't have a shop manual. Look at the sticky-threads at the top to see if you can find a shop manual for your generation of Accord.

Typically 1 or 2 places around the dash or around the interior fuse box, there's a cluster of wires all bolted down to the metal structure somewhere. Actually there's quite a few of these around the whole car, & you want the shop manual to tell you which ground points are used by the systems that are flaky.

How is the corrosion in the car? Frequently those ground points get rusty and you have to take them apart & clean them up to bare metal so they make a good connection again.

Here you go. Some of this is pretty old, but not long ago someone posted that it worked for whatever manual he was looking for.
https://www.hondaaccordforum.com/for...-manuals-4597/

Thanks Jim. From what I see in the shop manual there's three grounds in the engine bay. They were a little dirty but not badly corroded. I sanded them down and put everything back together. Unfortunately, that didn't help. Two questions that maybe you could help with. 1) My reading of manual is that there are three grounds (see image attached, the three circles, battery wire, engine block and G281). Could there be more and maybe that's the issue? 2) If its not the ground is the next step to check the wires themselves leading to the grounds? I've heard that the wires can be corroded from within, so sometimes that's the problem. The ground coming off the engine block has exposed wires with a little corrosion (see image attached). Would you start here or start with the wires coming off the battery? I still haven't been able to determine either from my Haynes or the shop manual what circuit the radio, seat belt warning, and headlights are on (they all seem connected in the issue I'm having).
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.hon...e0d3c00393.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.hon...f909e69c31.jpg

I wouldn't worry about the bare sections of the battery ground cable, as there's no green scunge on it. I really think you should be looking for a ground connection under the dash.

That's what I was thinking also. Look at the seatbelt section to see which interior grounds are being used by that system.

Thanks Jim and everyone else. I was looking in the wrong place. Attached is the interior seatbelt diagrams from the shop manual. Under the seat there is a regular wire harness with a connector. I don't see any grounds there--though maybe there are and I don't know how to look for them. Do you think the actual grounds would be under kick panel? If so am I looking for some black wire going straight to the frame or something else? Hoping to get this knocked out this weekend. Thanks again for your help.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.hon...1e1559c188.png