horn wiring mystery

exprof · Post by **exprof** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 2:18 pm

My horn stopped working, and I made an attempt to diagnose the problem today. I asked my wife to jump into the driver's seat, turn the key on and press the horn ring when I gave her a signal. I got underneath the car, disconnected the ground wire and attached a jumper wire to the terminal. I then touched the end of the jumper wire to clean bare metal. The horn went off, and I asked my wife to wait for my signal. She replied that she had switched the power on but that she had not touched the horn ring. I tried touching the wire to bare metal a couple more times, always with the same result--the horn sounded without my wife touching the horn ring.

Aside from the (very remote) possibility that my wife is playing a practical joke on me, what could cause this?

Any advice or help would be gratefully received.

Kiwi66 · Post by **Kiwi66** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 12:26 am

Hi Ex Prof. I am not an auto electrician, but there are some general rules that I follow whenever I get an electrical fault. The first is to check that the fuse is in tact and that the wires are connected and connections are clean, including the earth wire.( The earth being dirty can often cause a problem in my experience) I then check to see if any current is reaching the equipment (horn) by using either a test lamp or voltmeter. It may be that the contacts in the bar on the steering wheel that you press to "toot" horn are dirty, or a wire has broken or come loose. Just a slow process of elimination to check and locate the fault I'm afraid. The horn itself is working as you can get it to go by connecting a live wire directly to it - so that seems like a good thing. I hope this helps. Richard

rokemester · Post by **rokemester** » Tue Sep 08, 2009 5:36 pm

I don't think your wife is messing with you! I'm impressed that she is even trying to help. That's HUGE! The Bug horn circuit is a notorious pain in the butt. This recent thread I was involved on thesamba might help. I finally added a horn relay to get everything to work. I did the usual clean horn contacts and make sure that all the wires were connected to where they needed to be connected to.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=364573

Hey I just noticed that you're from Iowa. My 66 was originally from Boone, Iowa not too far from Iowa State University...right?

exprof · Post by **exprof** » Wed Sep 09, 2009 8:32 pm

Kiwi, Rokemester:

Thanks for the information; I have somewhere to start from now instead of being completely clueless.

Yes, Boone is not too far from Ames, where ISU is located. You'll pardon me for not saying too much else. I'm a University of Iowa alum

Kiwi66 · Post by **Kiwi66** » Thu Sep 10, 2009 2:53 am

You're welcome. I hope all goes well. Cheers. Richard

casamagana · Post by **casamagana** » Fri Oct 16, 2009 6:31 pm

Just went through a horn repair on mine. If the horn sounds without touching the horn ring, somewhere between the brown wire from the horn and the nut holding the wheel on, including the steering column tube itself, the control ciruit is grounded. The horn ring is an open in the gound circuit. Push on the horn ring and you connect the powered steering column to the brown wire running down the center of the steering shaft. This wire in turn is conntected to the steering box side of the steering coupler. Hope that helps.