1966 Sprite horn circuit workings?

[Luke_Healey]

Last night I jumpered my car horn, which works just dandy... So I busted out my wiring diagram and saw that the two horn wires lead only to the unswitched fuse and the horn push button on the steering wheel.

I'm curious how the steering wheel button works. I took the cover off of the turn signal controls to douse them in electrical contact cleaner last night. I see how there is a brass ring on the column with a contact that is in the purple wiring line for the horn. Then there is obviously the spring loaded button inside the column. I'm getting nothing there, but I didn't want to pry out that spring loaded center piece. I guess Victoria British refers to this spring loaded button as the 'horn brush'

When troubleshooting the horn circuit, what should I look for? Grounding out the horn wire, I get power to the horn (good!) But I'm curious how the horn wire inside the steering column works. Is there insulation on that brass ring? I would think the column itself would be grounded. Does the horn brush have a wire hooked to the back of it? And can I safely pull it up out of the steering column without ruining the spring in it?

Thanks for any help.. I wanted to ask first so as not to destroy anything /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif

 

[ChrisS]

I don't know if your car is positive or negative earth so I'll use ground to me earth and power to mean battery. The horn should get power from the battery at all times. The horn push completes the ground circuit and activates the horn. If you ground the wire at the column it should sound the horn. If it doesn't then the horn push is bad or the ground connection of the horn push is bad.

 

[Luke_Healey]

Ok, I will try that.. Grounding the purple wire up at the steering column that contacts the brass ring on the column.

Also, my horn button only 'push-n-turns' into place in three positions.

None of them are such that the Austin Healey logo ever lines up vertically up and down?? Is that normal?

 

[Luke_Healey]

Ok, I tested the horn with the steering column cover off.

The purple wire is working. The problem is that the steering column itself is not grounded. If I jumper a wire from the horn center wire to ground, the horn sounds.

So is there somewhere that the steering column has a wire that grounds it? Maybe my steering column is so greasy at the rack that there is no ground contact???