Horny little...

[Robert Smith]

HORN! I'm driving some friends around Redlands last Saturday and having a nice time looking at some very historic homes... now, as I make a U turn to go and take another look at a home, the horn goes off as I turn the wheel... and my hands are not even touching the ring! So, the next day (Sunday) I take the button and ring off the wheel... I'm not sure what to look for or, what not to let touch but, I fool around with it and after spending 20-40 minutes, I figured I had to loosen the brass T bar that holds the spring down... then, I put it all back together and didn't tighten all the screws down... turn the key and presto! No HORN blowing! When I had the screws all tight as they should be, the horn would sound!

Well, figured I licked that, however, on the way up the road to the Observatory in Griffith Park today on my way to work, the horn started to blow softly and loudly by each vibration from the road... great what is it now! I'm not sure what should and shouldn't touch in that wheel regarding the horn system. All I see is a brass T part that screws into the wheel that holds down a spring and there's a wire that comes from inside the wheel that goes through the middle of the spring and has a little metal part at the end that seems that it has to touch the bottom of the brass T part... I have no idea what to do about this.

Any help?

R=-

[rustbucket]

Sounds like the wire that runs thru the steering shaft might be shorting.

[TodFitch]

The horn wire comes up the center of the steering column shaft and connects to the horn button. The horn button grounds the wire to make the horn blow.

Generally the insulation on the wire coming up the column gets frayed and worn with time and shorts out causing the horn to blow. It often starts when you turn the wheel and then progresses (gets worse) from there. I'd have to check the service manual for your car but generally the hard part of replacing the wire is getting the horn button off without breaking anything. Sounds like you already have done that.

By the way, at that could also be the source of the power draw that has been affecting your battery as the wire from the horn relay comes off the hot (battery side) of the ignition switch on a P15 (which IIRC is the car you have).

That old rubber based, cloth covered insulation is pretty much worthless by the time it is 50 years old. I would strongly advise getting and installing a new wiring harness. If you are going original (as I would) your biggest deal other than cost is, IIRC, the wires to the rear going behind the headliner.

[Mark Haymond]

The horn relay in the engine compartment seems to be telling the horns to blow. And it gets its signal from the wire that runs from the horn relay, enters the bottom of the steering column and runs up to the horn ring parts. The first time it happened was when you turned the steering wheel, twisting the wire inside the column. I don't know if that is a hot wire or ground wire but it could be rubbed bare somewhere along its length. I would inspect it right where it comes out of the bottom of the column. If you don't see anything you could pull the wire out of the column. If it is bad you could replace the wire. Of course it has that special funny looking terminal at the the horn ring. Save that last six inches with the funny looking terminal and solder a length of new wire to it. You can do the same thing at the horn relay end so you can use the bullit that pushes into the horn relay.

Before you pull out the wire, make it easy on yourself and tie a string to one end of the wire so it gets pulled through the column. That will make it easy to pull a new wire back the other way, and get through the tube inside the steering box successfully.

[wills 51]

I had the same problem and it was the wire..

[Frank Elder]

I agree with saving the 2 connections, but would like to add a safety precaution.

At the horn button connection where no one will see, you can apply heat shrink tubing over your new soldered wire and old wire to prevent rubbing bare what is left on the old wire and starting your horn blowing on it's own again.

I did a little overkill and repeated this process all the way down the steering tube. Marked the wire with tape before it was removed, with string, measured how long the application would be, then completed the process.

This way myself and the next owner should never have to worry about it and it looks stock because the heat shrink was not extended past the bottam of the tubing.

Frankie

[steveplym]

Same trouble was found on my P-15. What I did was looked at the schematic and saw that the wire comes out the bottom of the steering column, thru the steering box. Then goes up to the horn relay. I removed the connection to the horn relay and pulled out the wire which is connected to the brass T bar.

I spliced the wire up close to the T bar and soldered a new wire onto it. Then ran the new wire down thru the column, thru the steering box and out to the horn relay. You have to solder the wire good and protect it with tape or shrink tubing. Just be sure you can get the wire back down into the column as there isn't a whole lot of room, and if you make the wire too fat it won't go back down in there.

[Robert Smith]

Thanks guys for all the advice I'll see what I can do about it!

=R

[CNP934DC]

I've had an ongoing issue with my horn as you may see from previous threads. I rewired my horns, coil connection, amp connection and installed a new relay. The last thing to do was to run a new wire down the column from the brass T at the horn ring area. Every test to blow those horns from battery to horn and from relay to horn, worked. The previous owner apparantly didn't have the original horn cable with the funny little cap on the end where it feeds through the T. He had the wire going through the T and into a metal grommet. The grommet had a non-metallic washer around it. After re-doing everything (except that horn cable which is jury rigged) I still can't get the horn to work properly. The amp guage goes daed negative when I hook everything up and hit the ring. My guess is the most critical piece of the puzzle is having a good cable up the steering column. I keep watching posts and EEEEEE-bay for an original cable. Nothing else on mine seems to be a problem. I even had the horn wire spitting sparks at me at one point. Needless to say, all is disconnected for now. I just yell out the window. Before long, I'll just install a button under the dash and be done with it.

[Powerhouse]

Maybe That 8volt Battery Juiced Up The Old ALLREADY FREYED Wire Too Much And Now It's NOTICEABLY Shorting...shorty...hahaha:d MAYBE THAT SHOULD BE JENNIE'S NEW NAME...HEHEHE

[Arthur1947]

I once used a small diameter black pvc tubing (used for a drip system) to feed the horn wire through the steering column. Perhaps you can use the same tubing and just leave it in to insulate the wire without have to pull it out. Just a thought.

Best.

ARTHUR

[martybose]

I chased a similar problem in my P15 for almost a year, fiddling with the horn ring, the wire, etc. It didn't stop until I replace the horn relay, then it worked perfectly.

YMMV.

Marty