The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Questions about horns - Now with Update Goodness!

My Dad's Cousin Wally -- who is a State Trooper -- tells me that in order to be "Street Legal" in Michigan, I must have a horn. And by happy coincidence and possibly serendipity, My truck came with one.

There's only one caveat... the horn has to work. The horn that came with the truck does not.

My questions are:

-Can I use one of those big 6v flashlight batteries to test it? If not, How about a 6v battery charger? Yank it and hook it to the battery in the truck? (I have a 6v system in the truck)

-If it is indeed broken (and not miswired as I suspect), how do I go about repairing it?

I have exhaustivly searched the forums -- or, rather, tasked the search engine to do so for me -- and there don't seem to be any threads on the matter, nor are there any tech tips.

Any assistance anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

brendan,

I have electrically confused half the forum this evening....it's your turn in the barrel.

If it is a old truck with a conventional horn..no relay, then mashing the middle of the steering wheel grounds the horn. It is wired with a hot already. When you ground the horn, the little vibrator is suppose to do it's thing.

You can run a wire from a good clean ground point, and touch it to a good clean point on the horn. Don't touch it to the other wire.

The ground wire you touch should spark a little and if all is well, the horn will sound. At the very least, if is quiet, you should hear a funny sounding attempt to toot..sort of like a growl.

You can coax it to toot, as you hold the ground wire on it, by tapping it with a screwdriver.

It might have an adjuster/locknut assemble on the underneath which is used to fine tune the tone. Fussing with this usually silences it for good. Have fun!


Stuart

Brendan, at least you received a better response from Stuart then I did,,,, told me my issue was pointless

Joker,

I meant the distributor!

Brendan,

If your truck has the old fashioned horn with the long straight trumpet, it probably has a separate, insulated screw for ground. If you have a meter, make sure one post has 6v and the other post should be touched to a ground to toot the horn.

Stuart

Stuart:

According to the wiring diagram, there is a line going back to to horn button, and from there to ground. When looking at the horn itself, there are two screws on the top with wires coming out of them.

I'll give it a shot and let you know how it works.

Joker: [snicker]

Okay, here's the deal.

Someone at some point (my guess is when they put the Pontiac steering wheel in) rewired the horn. The horn is currently wired from the Fan (was the heater) to a button on the side of the steering column, to the horn. The horn is then grounded to the intake manifold.

So, I fired the old girl up and touched a wire from the positive terminal to the batt terminal on the voltage regulator and I just about crapped my pants.

Not only does the horn work, it REALLY works.

So, in closing, I'll have to rewire it back to the way it's supposed to be. I'll probably have a peek at the rest of the wiring while I'm at it. Just because I know who used to own the truck.



Thanks for all of your help!

If you are going to keep that Pontiac steering wheel don't put the wiring back stock.

Get a horn relay (6 volt, might not be easy to find) and wire it to run the horn using the relay.

You'll be glad you did.

Brendan,


Too bad for the wash lady (da pantz ) Your post said you touched a wire from the battery to the what? Maybe you do have a horn relay..it sort of looks like a voltage regulator. Toot Toot!

Stuart

Oldsub:

I haven't decided if I'm keeping the Pontiac Wheel or not.

I was thinking about putting in a relay, though.

atomarc:

Nope. I followed all of the wires. No relays whatsoever.

It's the voltage regulator. I looked at the wiring diagram before I started messing around, and the charging system looked like it was wired right, so I went for it.

And don't feel too bad for the wash lady. I am my wash lady, and I only "just about" messed myself.

Brendan,


OHHHHHHHH!!! Your post reads " from the positive terminal to the batt terminal on the voltage regulator"...that "positive" terminal was the terminal on the HORN...I get it, I hope.

Stuart

'zactly.