348 Horn Help?

Sorry, took me a few minutes. The black wire is the wire that carries the signal from terminal 86. If you touch that wire to a ground, and the horn does not honk (you do have the relay plugged in, don't you?), then you've lost signal somewhere between the relay and the horn button. According to the diagram, the wire in question is supposed to be Violet, at least from the relay board to the steering wheel. I can't find it right off hand, there isn't enough room in my garage to squeeze under the dash.

So - the next two things to check;

1) Look through the gap around your wiper switch stalk. You can see the contact ring on the back of the steering wheel. At the very top, there should be a copper colored brush that is part of the steering column assembly. This brush has a spring behind it to hold it against the contact ring on the wheel. Can you see this? If it isn't there, that explains everything.

2) Tomorrow morning I can look under the dash and find the violet wire, which must go into a plastic connector for the wiring bundle to the column. The horn should honk when you jump this wire to ground, using the test light.

This will still be an easy problem to fix, I think, just takes a bit of diagnosis time.

 

I'll be in and out tomorrow, no particular times, have much to do, none of it particularly important.

Question: do you have the tool to remove the nut for taking off the steering wheel? And do you still have your old steering wheel? Just in case we need to get behind there and do some tests.

 

hey miltonian looks like you the relay man maybe you can help me out please my 308gtbi died in the arse last week( on rail crossing ) trying to pull fuse cover off(with sweat in my eye,s ) went straight for fuel pump relay and replaced it with the first one i could pull out to get me off the r/line soon as i plugged it in i could here the f/pump running got car going pheewww!! moved to safe distance started playing around the orig pump relay was very warm don,t no if this is normal it cooled down plugged it back in away she went do you know is this common prob or is it just my girl not feeling well cheers rizzo in aust

 

Brent - I'll definitely be calling you next time I need some electrical help.

I enjoyed reading this thread along with the Climate Control thread. Also good stuff you did with getting the A/C in the 328 working better.

 

Brent is the MAN! Good fix, bro. And great pictures!

Give it a good "toot" for me.

 

fweeerfff fwerrrfffff

Nice!

That makes it a really hard fix when it is unrelated to the relay issue!

 

By the way, Rizzo's post #30 should get a response, but I'm afraid I really don't know much about 308's, so I can't help. I would expect a relay that runs most of the time (like a fuel pump relay) to generate some heat, and I think I have seen threads about the fuse/relay panels on 308's going bad due to overheating at the contacts, but there are people here on FChat who know exactly what to tell you, and I'm not among them. If you start a thread in the Tech section with your question, you should have plenty of responses. Good luck!

 

This thread just showed me something I didn't realise too.....I noticed on one of those superb photo's that the cable entry connectors/blocks have the name 'BURNDY' in the mould, from one of my other interests leisure hobbies I immediately recognised this name as its the manufactured link cable for NAIM AUDIO HIFI (hi end Audio made in Salisbury UK) between CD player and its dedicated Power supply.

 

Been following this thread........great step by step analysis and deduction!

Good show Jeff and Brent!

 

this same thing happened to me...it is a pain in the rear to do with the steering wheel mounted but it can be done! i wish i had the tool to remove the wheel as it would be a 5 minute job to stretch and replace the spring after removing the steering wheel...

 

Almost 20 years later I used this thread to troubleshoot and isolate a horn issue. Now if only I knew how to find which wire on the back of the fuse panel supplied power to relay terminal 85...

 

According to the wiring diagrams, a big red one. 85 and 30 use hot battery power. If you have no power at 85 or 30, you may have relay panel issues. Or a flat/disconnected battery.

 

Actually, the diagrams suggest it's on the front of the panel. Is there a smaller red wire running alongside the main battery terminal on the panel? The horn wire is 6mm^2 in cross-sectional area. Usually the battery terminal is 26mm^2

 

Are you saying terminals 85 and 30 get their power from the same red wire? To be clear my problem is 30 has power but 85 does not. If they get their power from the same red wire then there must be something wrong internally in my fuse panel. I really didn't want to open this thing up.


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I am guessing the main battery terminal is the large black wire in the lower right of my picture above. You can see it's covered to protect you from shorting when installing the panel. There are no wires on the top side of the panel. Everything that goes into the panel can be seen in my picture above.

 

Actually hold up. I made a mistake. I was testing 86 for power because I inversed my drawing looking at the underside of the relay. Let me go test the correct 85.

OK 85 and 30 are both hot. Phew... that was the worst case scenario averted.

I previously plugged the adjacent relay with the same part number into this slot and the horn still didn't work. I know that's only 99% test but I think I have to check other parts of the circuit before bench testing the relay. I checked the circuit at the steering wheel and I can see it going to ground when I press the horn button.