baffled (again )

[david lewis]

my horns will only work if the engine is running  not with just when the ignition is on.

i have cleaned all the connections to the horns i can see including the column earth,

i must be losing power somewhere --anyone got any ideas?

cheers 

[Darren Groves]

What car?

[david lewis]

1969 13/60

[John Bonnett]

Although you have cleaned it I would still suspect that the problem is in the earth south of the horn push.You could just as a test connect it direct to the battery earth terminal and see if the horn works then. It should work with the ignition off. There is a constant feed to the horn on a brown wire direct from the control box. It sounds as if it needs the extra volts from the dynamo to make the connection. Just a thought.

[david lewis]

had another look at the horns today cleaning all the connections again and running another earth (no difference ) .the problem seems to be at the horn push,i cleaned the pencil and tried to stretch the spring.

now it seems to have a mind of its own--sometimes it works fine then 5 minutes later without touching it  it doesnt grrr

thanks for the suggestions so far.

[david lewis]

i think i have cracked it--put a blob of solder on to the brass pencil and filed it down neatly now all works ok touch wood!

cheers

[david lewis]

i thought i had fixed it but the next day same thing !

i removed steering wheel and cleaned the slip ring and double checked all the connections and earths with still no joy.

desperation was setting in and just before i took a  large hammer to the car i disconnected the right hand horn and eureka the other horn works perfectly,connected the horn again and both horns did not work so disconnected the r/h horn again and the l/h horn works  fine.

not understanding electrics very much i cannot figure out why this is happening,so i will leave the r/h horn disconnected as the l/h one is loud enough.

[RAW1969]

David

 

Very new to this - but having recently been rummaging in that part of my Vitesse - the following thoughts occur. Apologies if this is stating the obvious.

If disconnecting the R/H horn makes the L/H work (and both horns are known to work) - would suggest the problem is in one of the two wires connecting the two horns together. 

There's a whole bundle of wires in that bit of the bonnet and the bonnet hinges can trap them if they're not bound up in the loom. Maybe a damaged wire/ loose connector somewhere between the horns.

You could disconnect both horns from each other and rejoin them with a length of temporary wire you know to be good - and see if that makes them both work - if it does you then know there's a break somewhere in the joining wire - and you'll need to examine the wires to find it.

 

Richard

[david lewis]

thanks for the suggestions but i think i will leave well alone for a while for my temper to recover.

[Alan C]

David

 

I've had these problems in the past.

I'm not familiar with the Herald's horn wiring but if it's like the GT6's there will be a relay on the bulkhead. This means you'll have to run both a + & - feed direct from the battery in order to test the horn. If this works it would point to a dodgy earth as John has said.

Alternatively you could swap the horns over and see if that works.

I discovered to my surprise that my GT6 had only one functioning horn and I'd never noticed it for years. It only came to light when I removed them for blasting and painting. The horn was duff but the new one refused to work until a new earth lead was fitted. So you may have a duff horn and earth combined.

 

It's probably even more important for our cars to have fully working horns due to their rather small stature and the amount of morons driving on the roads today. I'm not certain but I think it's an MOT requirement to have a working low and high tone horn. Although I seem to have got away with it for several years!

 

Cheers

 

Alan

[Pete Lewis]

the only thing about tone in the MOT is it must not be frighening piercing of musical

    many moderns only have one low tone 

 

          Pete