ok so after taking half of the civics lower dash apart to access all the "hidden" screws,I come into a birdnest of wires and electrical tape.
After sorting through I find the orange-"illumination" wire hooked up to a single speaker wire leading further into the dash..Tracing the wire behind the gauge cluster;somebody has spliced the wire to the dimmer switch pinout on the clusters harness.
so with a quick cut and wiggle of the dimmer switch everything lights back up.
Gah hate working on cars after other people has gotten ahold of them.Seriously how hard is it to match color coded wires together.ha