A VERY Loud Problem! Horn is Possessed!

LowMilesLesabre

LowMilesLesabre

Joined
May 24, 2019
Messages
250
Location
Ontario Canada
Well, after finally getting a car that has a nice, loud, and usable volume of sound, don't you know that it turned on yesterday all by itself. I've checked the following:
1. Underhood Relay and Fuse all good
2. Inside fuse in passenger fusebox all good
3. Horns definitely work (as my ringing ears can attest)

This car is now 24 years old and only has 96K on it. There is no rust as car was from Southern US. I would like to keep this for quite a while, but need a workaround to have a horn. There are no longer Airbag assemblies sold new and it is my understanding that the horn switch is integrated into the airbag assembly so......... What are my options?
1. Search for a salvage steering wheel on the hope that is has any more life in it than mine had?
2. Wire in a new horn switch button with a bypass of the orignal switch by cutting horn wire past the passenger fuse?
3. Is there any requirement re: where a new horn button/switch can be placed re: Safety Canada regs?
4. Or should I just roll down a window and shout at other cars to avoid an accident? (I'm not a shouter by nature, but with practice, I could learn the skill :-/
 
The ghost in the machine. A supernatural cause is the most likely scenario for sure. I think those old rubber bulb horns are ghostproof.
 
Last edited:
I love option # 4!

Does it happen only if you're turning the wheel? It could be a clock spring.
 
I had a Cadillac that would do that. Usually around 3am. Drove me and the neighbors batty. Basically the wiring harness was shorting as I recall.
 
My wife had a '70 Mustang Mach 1 that had a possessed horn. She eventually figured out that it was the Sport Grip 500 that was wrapped around the steering wheel. The Mustang had a rubber ring around the inside of the steering wheel that you squeezed to blow the horn.

When it got hot inside the car, the horn would randomly blow. It was the Sport Grip squeezing the wheel rim.
 
dumkid said:
I had a car that the horn wouldn't turn off

I wired a switch down where the high beams should have been (on the floor by my left foot)
Click to expand...
Oh? I had completely not even thought of that dumkid. My granddad's car had one of those big buttons he would mash with his foot to engage the high beams. Maybe a lot of GM vehicles (maybe other brands too) had them. May I ask you if the switch you wired was marketed as one for the floor or just a push button somehow attached to the floor? Any insight into how you did this would be awesome. Thank you
 
Take the steering wheel part and look at the clearance for the contacts for the horn switch. I had a neighbor whose car did that and I narrowed it down to the steering wheel because I could get at the stop doing it by touching the steering wheel button for the horn.

If it has an airbag make sure you disconnect the battery first and then also short the terminals together while they're not connected to the battery so that you discharge any capacitor that might be on any system in the vehicle like a radio or anything. You want the vehicle to be completely dead on the power so that there's no chance that it could set off an airbag.


it also could be that the clearances for the contacts inside the horn relay or Too Close and in that case you could take the relay apart and increase the clearance.

Another possibility could be that the wire from the steering wheel is rubbing someplace and is touching ground because it is rubbed through.

Horns are not a very complicated system and you should be able to troubleshoot it if you have any background at all in electricity.
 
I had a 1970 Dodge parked in a driveway in Florida in about 1985 and we had a bad thunderstorm and must have had a nearby lightning strike because the horn in my car went off and wouldn't stop. I finally had to unplug the horn relay to get it to stop but when I plugged the relay back in the horn didn't start blowing again. I had that car for 28 years and I've had MANY other Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouths but that was the only time that I ever had that happen. The car was completely stock and had no alarm system or anything else added and no steering wheel cover. The car was locked at the time and when I went outside I checked and it was still locked so no one had touched it. And also pressing and releasing the horn button wouldn't stop the horn. Only pulling the horn relay finally stopped it.
 
LowMilesLesabre said:
Oh? I had completely not even thought of that dumkid. My granddad's car had one of those big buttons he would mash with his foot to engage the high beams. Maybe a lot of GM vehicles (maybe other brands too) had them. May I ask you if the switch you wired was marketed as one for the floor or just a push button somehow attached to the floor? Any insight into how you did this would be awesome. Thank you
Click to expand...
Horn Button
It's a generic push button and it just grounds out the wire that used to go to the horn. I mounted it on the wall by my foot with some wood screws. I unplugged the horn switch in the steering wheel. (it just had a single wire connector)
It's not on the floor but I could have mounted it anywhere
This was on a 2001 Mitsubishi so you have to find your own wiring diagram
 
LowMilesLesabre said:
Well, after finally getting a car that has a nice, loud, and usable volume of sound, don't you know that it turned on yesterday all by itself. I've checked the following:
1. Underhood Relay and Fuse all good
2. Inside fuse in passenger fusebox all good
3. Horns definitely work (as my ringing ears can attest)

This car is now 24 years old and only has 96K on it. There is no rust as car was from Southern US. I would like to keep this for quite a while, but need a workaround to have a horn. There are no longer Airbag assemblies sold new and it is my understanding that the horn switch is integrated into the airbag assembly so......... What are my options?
1. Search for a salvage steering wheel on the hope that is has any more life in it than mine had?
2. Wire in a new horn switch button with a bypass of the orignal switch by cutting horn wire past the passenger fuse?
3. Is there any requirement re: where a new horn button/switch can be placed re: Safety Canada regs?
4. Or should I just roll down a window and shout at other cars to avoid an accident? (I'm not a shouter by nature, but with practice, I could learn the skill :-/
Click to expand...
I had a 84 Honda Accord that my friends teased me for. The horn would randomly go off. After alot of head scratching One night I saw a spark. One of the wires was intermittently shorting out. After I installed a battery tie down and electrical tape all was well.
 
My 2003 Park Avenue would randomly honk the horns (loud dual horns) about twice a year for several seconds each time. Usually when I was behind a bike gang or a police car. Did that for the many years we owned the car.
 
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