Well, after ages of procrastination, I finally pulled out the center
console and tracked down my electrical short and fixed it in my 73'B.
Cool, now I have all my 'goodies' back like the highbeam flasher, courtesy
light, cig lighter and horn...oh wait a sec: the horn doesn't work.
So I pulled off the steering column covers and began to check stuff out
and I _think_ I found the problem, though I believe I need some technical
guidance from ye olde list. Okay, the horn's switch operation is, as best
as I can see, as follows: a positive lead connects to a small spade
connector to which a small strip of metal is attached. This strip of
metal is always in contact with an insulated metal ring that is physically
attached to the wheel itself so that as the wheel is turned, the strip of
metal 'rides' the circle of metal and always makes contact. There is a
small piece of metal rod that pushes through the steering wheel and
touches the ring at one end and protrudes into the horn push button
slightly at the other. By depressing the horn button, the driver
lowers a small strip of metal slightly and creates a circuit between the
top of the steel rod and the center of the steering column and
honks the bloody horn.
Now, I'm not _sure_ that this is totally correct and I guess my first
question is, how far off am I? My second question is: where do I get
that little piece that has a spade connector for the positive lead on one
side and the little metal strip on the other, I can't find it in any parts
catalogs I've got...including Moss. Did I just make this dohicky up?
See, my dohicky's metal strip (that makes contact with the metal circle)
is either broken off or never existed, but looking at it closely...it
seems as though something was broken off as the metal is fresh and new in
cross-section at that point and that's the only explanation for the horn
operation I could come up with....and believe me, with no metal strip
there already, that took some cigarettes and serious chin scratching.
So, I fabricated a metal strip out of a water hose clamp (which fit onto
the spade connector like it was made for it) and walked back and forth
from my grinder a few times and finally created a 'plunger' rod out of
some electrical tape wrapped around a bolt that seemed to fit well...but I
found that the threadslits in the waterhose clamp was chewing into the
metal ring and that my plunger wasn't doing anything...so I removed all
the stuff and and decided to ask here.:)
Any help you can offer is much appreciated.
neil doane
|