The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Amp meter

I went to connect the battery, the horn beeped twice and then silence. When I turn the key on the amp meter doesn’t move any more. And the horn does not honk. I powered the horn and it still works. Did I blow the amp meter?

......I was just in that circuit yesterday and , as noted by others, there's no fuse in the horn cicrcuit. If the horn still works, then I'd suggest you pop off the horn button cover, remove the 3/4" nut and check the spring loaded contact under the sheet metal plate.
If you down load a shop manual from the Old Car Project you can see a wiring diagram at the beginning of chapter 12. Really helps a lot to see how the horn works.

Try turning the headlight switch on. If the lights dont burn, try cleaning the battery cable connectors thoroughly and reinstalling them. None of the main circuits on a stovebolt are fused- - - -starter, ignition, lights, charging system, etc. It's possible that someone has installed a fusible link between the ammeter and the battery cable terminal at the starter, but that's not an original circuit.
Jerry

Well I started to give you some suggestions but stopped in my tracks..............how exactly did you "power the horn"? If the horn is still wired per original, it has two wires running to it. One is live voltage from the ammeter and the other is ground back to the horn button which does the grounding. No relay. So did you just jump the horn ground terminal right to the horn bracket and left the power wire attached? Doesn't seem like the dedicated ground wire touching ground or horn parts touching ground will affect the ammeter. Hard to "short out" that wire and cause ammeter trouble. It wants to short out...... to honk. The fact it honked and went dead is not a hot wire short. The horn ground wire has a connector somewhere. But many things get changed over the years.

Jerry is suggesting dirty positive or negative terminals a some draw tests on the ammeter. (headlights). Observe what the ammeter does. Do that stuff.

If you reply about how you did the test, I can give a comment about what is wrong, and why ammeter "doesn't move". But as you can guess, I need to know what that means.
If the hot wire to horn shorted or the horn guts shorted, that could damage the ammeter. You may want to disconnect the horn hot wire at the horn while doing things, and of course see if that wire is hot at the horn.

I hope you are not forgetting to tell us the reason the battery was being re connected is that you were working on the horn or some wiring

Darren,
About a week ago, you were asking about assembling the front clip. Did this problem show up after assembling the front clip?

The 48 and 49 ought to have a fuse block with 5 fuses and one solid (non fused) connector. The 4 fuses are Upper Beam, Lower Beam, Park, Tail and Stop. The solid connector is for the horn. The 50 and 51 ought to have a fuse block with 2 fuses...stop and tail. Sorry but I don't have a wiring diagram for the 47 and the data I have on the 1952 shows it is basically the same as the 50 and 51. I mention the 48 and 49 because years ago a friend had a truck titled as a 1950 which was actually a 1948 cab on a 1950 frame (with the 1948 wiring). We don't know when it happened, but it did and the title was never changed.

No, it happened prior to getting the front clip installed.

So I have lights and power to my radio. I either have something wired wrong or I missed a wire in the loom that connects to the drivers side of the amp meter from the starter. I know that I am missing the wire to the drivers side of the amp meter because this is what should be providing the power to the horn. I figured this out first because I have no power to the horn. But I also have a before and after picture of the gauge cluster from behind.

So if that's a reducer on the gas gauge, have you converted to 12V? ???? <<<<<<<<< that's a question.

Are you following a 1950 wiring diagram?<<<<<<<<< Question

Remember, all we have are your words. You say the horn honked when battery connected. Then say there is no power to the horn. You didn't answer previous questions. Can you see that this may make it difficult for us to help you?

The battery cable goes to the starter. A 10 ga wires goes from that starter terminal to the positive side of the ammeter. There is one other 14 gauge wire from ammeter pos to horn.
Everything else goes to the negative side of ammeter. So if you say you have power to lights and radio, you can't be missing the input from starter/battery???????????
Unless you have it miswired and are not following the 1950 wiring diagram.
If you have a new harness or have changed the wiring scheme, we need to know unless you have it all figured out now.

I don't understand which of the two pictures is the current state of your wiring.

The first picture shows an appropriate number of wires on the ammeter, but no voltage reducer on the gas gauge.

The second picture has the reducer, but is missing the large wire on the ammeter, which according to bartamos' wiring diagram provides battery voltage to the ammeter.

I am assuming you have the small wire (feeds the horn) on the "hot" side of the ammeter as shown in the wiring diagram.

Things between those 2 images changed. The fuel gauge wiring switched (and you don't need that reducer) and the ammeter wiring also changed...not correctly I'd say. I'm confused. Please tell us what is happening.

Thank you for everyone’s help. I had the wire from the starter wired to the key starter. Once I chased all the wires on the wiring diagram I realized my mistake. Now I have power to the horn, lights, radio, and heater.

You are all correct I have converted the truck to 12 volts.

For the heater I am using a step down block to go from 12 to 6 volts. Currently I am pulling the power for this off the passenger side of the amp meter. It works but is it the right place to pull the power from?

Thank you all once more.

It is on the correct side if the ammeter needle reacts to you turning the heater fan on and off. Easier to see if the key is on, but the engine is not running.

Watch where you put the "step down block". Those can get hot.