Inliners International Forums General Discussion Electrical Horns Won't Honk

Bought a new Light Harness for my 63 Chevy II Wagon. Was worth swapping out for the old crusty/burnt one but it did not cure the horns. They still wont honk?

Uh should I check fuses or could this be a ground problem?

James

IIRC the horn relay for that originally got power through a fuseable link, so unless your new kit replaced that with a mondo fuse of some kind, you should still have one. Did the kit come with a new horn relay? Old one could be bad (these days, so could a new one). If you push the horn button, the relay should click (fairly loud, yes, for that matter the horn should sound too, but then you wouldn't be asking for help ).

If the relay doesn't click, make sure you have power geting to it (got a test light?) then you can ground the wire that goes to the horn button, if it clicks then your problem is the horn button or it's contact (if the horns go off too, you may not hear the relay but then, you want them to so be ready). I don't recall for sure which terminal is for the horn button right at the moment, but I want to say it's the middle one (someone chime in if you know please).

Of courese if it's not getting power to the relay you'll have to fix that first.


Other than that, the horn itself or bad grounds.

Hi James.
On my car I was missing the switch in the steering wheel that makes contact with the copper ring in the column. Check to see if you have it AND that it makes contact with the ring.

yes I am going to pull the steering wheel and horn unit apart. Hopefully if missing or broken i can replace.
James

Nexxussian you have a few points there. I will start at the top and work down. The relay should be under the dash and heck maybe someone pulled it out. The system is simple so at some point I should find the disconnect.

James

Foggy on the relay location, but I thought it was on the firewall under the hood??

Just a silly question. Have you tested the horns off the car? The ones on my 66 were dead as well as having the column issue, but the ones off my 63 worked fine....

If you cant fix it you could go OLD SCHOOL with the big white horn button on the dashboard. This would prevent it from inter-acting with any other electrical stuff. They have the horn buttons in JC Whitney and some auto parts stores.

James, I see that this post is from a while back. I was wondering if you ever did get your horn working? Hopefully you did, and I'm too late responding. Anyway, your horn relay is located just below the regulator on the driver's side of the front underhood just beside the radiator. On your headlamp/lighting harness, two wires go to the parking lamp and two wires go to the horn. Mine is two green wires to the horn and a purple and a grey to the park lamp. There are also the wires to the horn relay and wired connector to the voltage regulator. The rest is all wired back into the firewall with the harness. Like Nexxussian stated, my guess is that your horn relay (and possibly the regulator) are bad, or a bad connection in your steering wheel/column. Maybe the fuse? The horn relay and regulator are very cheap replacements at the auto parts store. If that doesn't work, then I guess your horn is shot, or there is a short or something wrong within the wiring harness. Hope this helps if I'm not too late. If I am too late, then I'll do some push ups for ya!