Novice needs help getting horn to work to pass inspection

[leftside11]

Hello all,

I've replaced the horn relay, tested the actual horn and it works; but I can not get the horn to sound.

I'm not too familiar with the horn button and it's parts.

What else should I be looking for or testing?

Any other way to get the horn to work? I can't pass NY state inspection w/o one.

Thanks in advance

[Uncle Skip]

Lefty.
The horn is always hot thru the relay. You make it work by grounding the relay. You can do this with a remote horn button from the relay to a ground inside the cab. As I remember, its the black wire that goes into the steering column.
To test the horn before you do a lot of stuff, just pull the black wire plug out of the wire harness at the steering column and use a jumper to ground it, or pull the black wire from the horn relay and use your jumper to ground it there. The horn should honk when you do this.

1. Wire from battery to the horn relay. Hot.
2. Wire from horn relay to the horn. Hot when the relay is grounded
3. Black wire from relay to the inside of the truck. Grounds the relay, makes the wire from the relay to the horn hot. When that wire is hot, the horn is already grounded thru the case and the horn should honk.
Let us know how it goes.
U@ss

[azratrod]

in my model a hot rod i just have a can of compressed air. i passed right through the dmv with flying colors. the lady with the clip board asked for the horn. i started to shake the can up. she stopped me and said it hurt her ears and not to blow it. i passed

[Astrowing]

I had several problems with my horn wire. The wire where it goes into the harness on the firewall was damaged. The pass-through the firewall connector was corroded. The connector under the dash was coroded and also didn't make a good connection. The steering wheel column had dropped about 1/4 inch from where it was supposed to be. There is supposed to be a 1/16 inch clearance between the steering column and the steering wheel to ensure the brush makes good contact to the ground ring. Also, the brush in the steering column had to be replaced. I suggest tracing the horn wire back from the horn relay towards the horn brush. You can make a jumper to touch to a good ground and gradually add the wires back into the circuit. A good voltmeter/ohmeter is also essential. I've got my temp add-on horn button removed from the dash now! Good luck!

[Astrowing]

Also, at least on the '61, the horn wire is blue with a yellow stripe. Under the hood, I found that the colors are bleached out after 50 years. It helps immensley to pull back some of the harness wire tape to identify colors if it is hard to tell.

[johnny]

bring your wife or girlfriend with you or if your married tell your wife about your girlfriend when the inspector comes out now dont get mad ive got to be funny some times
John

[leftside11]

Thanks for the tips.

I'm going to dig out my truck from the snow and give it a try tomorrow.

Will let you know how it goes.

I'm always amazed by this community.

Lefty

[blackagatha]

in the possibility that your springy contact under the dash is broken/missing, you could do like I did, I bent a paperclip to jam into the contact tube, with the end sticking out with wire attached to it, the long end is bent up against the contact ring with the tip bent back down to keep from snagging. Just a wee bit of pressure. Dielectric grease all over it. works like a charm and didnt cost me $80 for turnsignal/contact assembly....

[cdherman]

And, be aware that the steering shaft must be grounded. Don't assume that it is. You can test with the lead from the socket where the contact/spring rides over to a known good ground, like the dash.

The run the same test to the top of the steering shaft.

The orignal 65-66 design at least has a copper lead that establishes ground through the rag joint (thus the expensive rag joints). However, later trucks (67-78) just substituted a steel tapered race for one of the plastic ones at the ends of the sterring rod, thus establishing ground.