I was driving back home after throwing some darts last night, and the dash gauge backlights were dead. I tried fiddling with the rheostat dial, and as expected got nowhere with this. Does anyone know what fuse this is on?

 

It's the same fuse as the tail lights / parking lights, so the first check is to see if the tail lights and the front corner lights still work. It is common for the brightness controller rheostat thing to fail also. Check if that's the problem by bypassing it. Pry it out of the dash and unplug the plug, then jump the solid red wire to the solid black wire in the plug. The dash lights should now come on full bright when you turn the light switch on. If they do, brightness controller is bad.

 

OK, I went to check the taillights last night, and I noticed the dash lights were on as normal . I took a look under the dash to see if there were any loose wires, or anything, and it looks like someone went wire happy under there, replaced all the wires, and never heard of a disconnect. The wires were wrapped around the tabs and exposed wires everywhere.

I have other various electric problems in my civic (window motors, windsheild washer motor, fuel pump waiting 20 minutes to go off even with new relay switches), nothing serious, but annoying enough. Anyone know about how much it would cost to have someone rewire it. Just need a ballpark estimate.

 

The easiest thing to do with messed up wiring would be to get an unmodified stock harness either new or used. Pull the dashboard and replace all the wiring. This is a potential DIY job, it's just a whole lot of plug and play.