jpatrick62

I'm posting this in the hope that someone may have run up against this before or has ideas of what may be causing my issue. I have run into this before and thought the issue was a manufacturing defect on new cancel cams, but now I think there is
an undiagnosed issue I am not seeing. So I replaced the turn signal switch in my (standard, non-telescoping) '69 which went well. However, I am finding out that when I compress the locking plate, the horn contact stalk that is moulded into the cancelling cam
gets very stiff and will not rotate at all. I did not see this at first, and when I put on the steering hub and wheel and turned the steering wheel, the horn contact stalk broke in half.


Here you can see the horn contact stalk that extends from the cancelling cam, through the locking plate and into the steering hub. It rotates freely about the steering shaft when uncompressed.


When uncompressed by the locking plate, the cancelling cam rotates freely about the steering shaft, so the center hole on the cam is not too small. I've found that if I put some grease between the cancelling cam and the locking plate, the cam rotates more freely as it should.



This is a pic of the locking plate (compressed) onto the steering column and over the cancelling cam.

I've tried several things without a fix - but oddly when I put some grease between the cancelling cam and the locking plate, the issue goes away. Has anyone else run into this issue?

C6-CYa

I know you said it was new however it looks like slider material is missing in your photo?

This is from my non-telescoping. Is the telescoping that different?

jpatrick62

Yeah that's the irony - it is a brand new cancel cam that I ordered because after putting in a new turn signal switch, the old cancel cam horn piece snapped off after I compressed the locking plate on it and turned the steering wheel. The cancel cam did come with a thin tape-like covering to cover the metal tabs, but that soon fell off. Where did you get your cancel cam from? Does it freely spin or move around the slot where the locking plate is compressed onto it?

C6-CYa

I got mine from Willcox but they don't have one listed for your column.

I did see this at Ecklers and it does look different to yours? Maybe I'm completely barking up the wrong tree.

Ecklers Cancel Cam

jpatrick62

Yeah I saw that one but it doesn't have the horn button connected to it -
Does your cancel cam slide around (in the hole in the locking plate) when compressed?

C6-CYa

I'll send you a DM with my email address; I can send you instructions I put together when I completely redid the steering wheel horn assembly on my standard column 69.

I found that everything had to be at a specific angle too and that could be part of your problem. At least the document may give you some ideas. Hopefully others will chime in here...

Eliredandblack

Have you visited Jim Sheas papers on steering columns? Extremely detailed as he worked for Saginaw.

jpatrick62

Thanks for all the replies, I got the cancel cam and horn back on and working properly. C6-CYa sent me a great document on the proper alignment and I suspect this was what I was not doing properly. So lessons learned for anyone else having an issue:

1. The cancel cam does not have to turn or move under the locking plate (even when compressed) if it is aligned properly. Roughly, the horn button stalk that is on the cancel cam for standard (non T/T) steering columns should be at approximately -45 degrees from top
of the steering wheel center. You must also have the steering column and wheels dead center.

Again, thanks for the help!

C6-CYa

You're welcome, happy you got it working! I'm not sure how to post documents here

I looked at all of Jim Sheas documents, plus all the info at great suppliers like Willcox, and it still took me two days playing around till I actually figured the horn out and understood how it worked; something that I thought would be simple!

jpatrick62

You might be able to simply attach your documentation with the clip icon. Simply put, your document is very good and very informative to those who might be working on horn issues. I agree on the horn mechanism being more complex than originally meets the eye.

C6-CYa

Thanks, found the clip under the Advanced options for replying