Mongo

I am guessing the grease on the back of the steering wheel served as a conductive grease to operate the horn. I have some lithium grease and a dry graphite lubricant. Either these have conduction to replace the old grease now gone?

Dunno what I was thinking but I didn't have coffee when I did it.

F451

It may be that the metal tangs, or tabs, are not making firm contact. When I replaced my steering wheel, I very carefully bent the metal tang on the base of the steering column up so it would make firmer contact.

Might be worth trying.

James Bailey

Wrong guess but the grease helps the copper tab slide and not get caught and bend or break . Check out the wire that connects to the pad it completes the circuit.

Bill51sdr

Sound familiar?

Mongo

**** I hope I didn't break it off. I used 'gentle' Mongo strength to pull the pad off. The wire disconnected itself from the pad but didn't break off from the base of the steering wheel. Going back into it tomorrow to fix a connection issue on the back of the cluster causing an inaccurate tach, blinking "R" light and an illuminated highbeam light.

Mrmerlin

remove the lower steering column cover and inspect to see if the horn ring is infact making contact with the wheel ring.
if not, adjust the switch housing so it just touches with the steering wheel nut tight.
Warning not following this step will cause early failure of the switch brass tab and or horn ring on the steering wheel, you can use some wheel bearing grease on the tab for lube ,
a small dab on a screwdriver is all it takes

anonymousagain

off topic - Awesome flight pic Mrmerlin !!

Mongo

When I button it back up after pulling the cluster this weekend I'll check the distance between the triple switches and the steering wheel hub to verify the surfaces are contacting. I'm sure it's something simple that I overlooked.

Mrmerlin

Roger ,Fury Mustang flight,........... break left

dr bob

Andy--

Do you have an ohm meter? If so the adjustment is amazingly simple. Pull the horn fuse (#18 on my '89 car) and the horn relay (XII on my '89). Plug one lead of the ohm meter into the "85" plug socket. The relay has numbers on the base, just relate them to the socket to see where to plug it in. On my car it was the top connection, horizontal. I made a little jumper with a male spade terminal on it to plug into the panel safely, and connected the meter to that. The other meter lead clips to the wire sticking of the steering wheel, where the horn pad was connected. Watch the meter for low resistance (close to zero ohms) and you'll know that you have the slip ring connection adjusted right.

A few weeks ago I replaced the electrical part of the ignition switch, trying to cure an erratic symptom unrelated to the horn. To get the pod off, the steering wheel is removed, and the switch assy on the column gets moved back (towards the rear of the car) to make room for the pod to swing to the rear on the ignition switch side. There's a clamp that holds the column switch assy to the column, and the position of that on the column is critical to getting just the right preload on the contact to the wheel. 8MM nutdriver to loosen, then adjust the position of the switch enough to the rear of the car, towards the steering wheel, that the meter shows that low resistance. You want just enough preload to make the connection but no more needed. It might take a couple tries to get it where you want it, just far enough back to close the circuit and zero the meter on ohms. Verify that the switch levers are level, snug the clamp with the nut driver, re-install the horn pad. Move the lead that was on the pad wire to a chassis ground point, and testa again by pressing the horn pad. Meter should go to zero, back to infinite when you release the pad. If all is good, replace the relay and the fuse and you are done.

If your neighbors and family dont mind the noise, you can do all this without the meter. Leave the fuse and relay installed, and use a small jumper to ground the pad wire. As you adjust and get the connection, the horn will sound. Disconect the jumper to make it stop.

You can also just connect the meter to the horn wire, meter set to DC volts, and the other meter lead attached to ground. Your indication of connection is seeing 12 volts on the meter when the ring is in contact. Maybe that's easier than pulling the fuse and relay...

Anyway, there are a couple relatively simple ways to get this adjustment just right.

Oz928BOY

+1 relay....fixed my horn that way!

ew928

Too bad there's no easy way to disconnect the leads by the horns and wire in a side marker bulb to show when the horn is being activated.