Ye Olde Horn Problem

[67Spit]

Greetings all,

I’ve recently had a few jobs done on my Mk3 Spitfire (chiefly gearbox replacement). Another job was fitting a new steering joint, the ‘new’ type without the rubber bushes. This was done as a favour while the car was there. Nice garage, nice chaps, steering is now fabulous.

Thing is, the horn now sounds intermittently . I’ve noticed the steering wheel scrapes as I turn it to the right, but the horn doesn’t always sound at the same point of contact. The pencil and push are removed. Am I right in thinking the contact is causing the horn to sound as the wheel touches the ring that the pencil (when fitted) touches? I don’t think the purple/ black earth wire is damaged.

Also, due to the steering joint being longer I need to collapse the column half an inch or so, how do I do that, and is this the likely cause of the horn sounding? Of course I should take it back to the garage, but at the moment I can’t, so I’m trying to sort it out myself.

 

 Thanks in anticipation,

 

Alex

[Pete Lewis]

the inner and outer column are collapsible and offer some life saving in a serious impact  

if you look at most manuals you will see there is a slip telescope just below the end of the outer tube 

the outer tube has to collapse as well so it is not rigidly mounted  so 

with a shreaded wheat for breaky  you can heave the stg wheel or the tube up and down without undoing anything 

you need to increase the gap between wheel and switch cowl to stop the stg wheel self earthing 

bet you have virtually no gap . needs 3 to 6 mm  to stop the beeps 

so give it a good shove and wiggle the outer column tube will be the easiest to move inwards a little 

there is a careful proceedure to reset the telescope clamp we wont go there unless you end up undoing anything 

Pete 

[67Spit]

Thanks Pete,

I’ll give it a go. I’m off out now to fetch some Shredded Wheat. 🤣

Alex