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Some time back, someone wanted to know about the horn - just did a refurb of mine...... got some pics of the internals if needed - and a short post ready to go..... promise - short....

frats,
Rosco

Im doing my head in over my horn at the moment,you maybe able to help. When I push the horn button the horn makes a little noise but thats it. Its not the horn I tested that with the battery and its not the wiring as I have also tested that. When I put my test lamp on the tan wire coming fom the horn button its showing me that its earthing when I push it in, but when I earth the tan wire against the body at this point the horn works. This points towards the horn button being the fault but I dont understand why because it is earthing. Could it be that its not a strong earth?. Any help would be great as I am up for rego and need to sort it out to get a pink slip.

Hi Matt,
the two leads to the horn are red and tan..... red is battery positive and is always there - as long as the fuse in your fuse block is sound.....(no pun intended).
The tan wire, as you state is direct from the horn button.
The terminal on the horn itself has two spade connections - I don't know why but some time back I found just changing the connector to the other spade made mine work - I don't know why, it's not logical -they are the exact same terminal just bent in a "U".....

Horn button - yes, something may be amiss here - I think you realise that the horn uses quite a bit of current and the earth is the "switch"..... you may very well get a perfect (0,00) reading on an ohmmeter - there is practically no load (1 volt I think) when making a resistance test through the multi-meter...
When it comes to actually demanding the "grunt" for the horn to work it may "open circuit" any contact - we had a post on the horn steering wheel contact some days ago where I threw another novel up.... can't remember who I posted it for........

My suggestion at present it first to change over the connector to the other spade (not the red terminal - you'll blow the horn fuse).
If that fails - try making up a short lead to connect the horn negative terminal (the exact one which the tan lead is currently connected to) and touch the other end to earth - if it sound perfectly, either your horn contact in the steering wheel (carbon or brass brush) is worn, spring failing or has crap between it and the brass hub is slides around on.
I would doubt that there is something sinister with the tan lead - if it is broken you wouldn't be getting a reading on your multi-meter.....

Let me know - how this goes......

By its very location - the horn terminals are subject to the environment and although there are plastic terminal covers - they really are not weather proof..... pull them both off, give them a light scrub with some very fine emery and make sure the connectors on the wires are clean......

I'll jump on again this afternoon to check.....

frats,
Rosco

Thanks rosco, tried all that but it was still would'nt work. I changed the tan wire from the horn contact and it worked, had a look at the wire and it looked sweet so who knows. Thanks again for the advice your a champ.

Matt... so - it's OK now?

hope so - if it's fixed it - you've got exactly what I had..... but..

changed all that again a couple of years back....

When I put in halogen headlights, I fitted two sets of headlamp relay units and decided to make a modification to include the horn - I don't know if it's legal.... someone will pull me up one day......

What I did was to permanently "earth" the horn on its mount and use the steering wheel horn contact to switch a relay to supply the positive feed to the horn.

having done that, I decided to connect the two - but put a diode in so that the horn didn't sound whe the high beams were on......

What happens now is that when I press the horn - I also switch on my high beams...... as mentioned, don't know if they're legal.... some of the older Jags had this feature and it certainly gains a bit more attention than just the horn when you want to warn someone.........

So, for all intents and purposes - the only things my horn and headlight/dimmer switches do are to operate relays...... the load on them is virtually non existent.......and they are fused on the "safe" side of the switches.....

frats,
Rosco

Just sent this off to someone.....

much repeated from above - but may clarify some of the modification.....


You may be interested in what I did when it came to re-wiring mine...... I broke away completely from the General's idea and invented one of my own......

The whole idea I wanted was to make the horn permanently earthed - that is make a direct lead from the earth terminal straight to the body - one wire down - one to go.......have to make it work somehow - right?

I put a relay in under the dash which fed the positive to the horn.......

So, how do we get it to work with the horn button.....easy....

The original power lead from the horn terminal of the fuse box goes to one side of the relay and the earth from the horn button the other - so when you press the button - it makes earth for the relay and closes it to do what ever you like........

What I then did was to connect the same feed from the horn fuse to the input of the relay...... the output of the relay went to the positive terminal of the horn.......

So now - you press the horn button and it closes the relay - positive then goes to the horn and sounds it because the other side of the horn is always earthed....... all still protected by the horn fuse.......

that's it...... but.... there's more - if you want to do what I did......

I saw an old Jaguar one day and when he sounded the horn...... his high beams also flashed...... hmmmmm..... that's a neat trick.. how can I do that with my old bus.......

easy, now....... I have a horn relay which feeds positive to the horn.....

and..

I have headlight relays which feed positive to either high or low beam.....

connection is easy....

when you press the horn - an additional positive wire goes to the input of the high beam headlight relay....... job done.... almost....read on....

the problem was than when I put high beam on - yep - the horn sounded continuously......

so - easy fix....

put a 4004 Diode (20 cents from an electronic store) in the line from the horn relay to the high beam relay...... that's it.... if you put it in back the front the horn will sound with lights on, but the lights won't flash when you sound the horn - just turn the diode around the other way......

now when I sound the horn - the high beams shine brightly..... but when I'm on high beam - no horn ....... unless you also press the button......

sorry for the long post - you'll read it again in the forum...... see what the net drags into the conversation......

frats,
Rosco