Trying to diagnose my non-functional horn problem from the fuse block and relay onward, not the steering column.
My horns did not work when connected directly to a battery source so replaced them with aftermarket.
My first question is the wiring at the horns. The green wire connects to the horn but also splits and goes to some type of resistor and then chassis ground at the same location as the headlight harness ground. Why? What is this supposed to do? It does this on both horns and seems to be the factory harness. The wiring diagram that I have (maybe from wilcox) does not show this part of the harness.

I removed this part of the harness (the part with the resistor an ground) and just using the green wire to the horn.
I removed the horn relay and just have the orange and green pins jumpered for now to take everything else out of the equation.
I have power at the orange (and green wire) with the jumper.
I connect my test light to the horn ground and the green horn wire (disconnected from the horn) and it lights, so looks like I have power at the green wire and the horn ground is good. So far so good.

I disconnect the test light and touch the green wire to the horn and I hear a very faint sound briefly but the horn does not blow. I go back to the test light at the horn connections and it no longer works. I wait a while, actually I take the test light and start probing the fuse and the jumpered orange/green wires, and then go back to test the green wire at the horn with the test light and it will come back on. If I try touching the green wire to the horn again, same thing. Faint noise then no power to the test light again.

Is there a circuit breaker somewhere that I am tripping that takes a little while to reset?

Any suggestions on where to look next?

Thanks

Skip

 

If you apply 12 volts and have a good clean ground, your horns should sound. I would bet the horns are bad out of the box. There are some horn rebuild kits that guys have used. Until the horns are working directly to 12 volts and ground, you really can’t do much troubleshooting. You need to get a wiring schematic for an 82 car.

 

Thanks for your reply.

The horns work fine when I connect direct to a battery.
I don't understand the purpose of the resistor (if that is what it is) and ground connected directly to the green wire.

I also don't understand while I lose power at the green wire after I touch it to the horn for a period of time.

Skip

 

Can you post a picture of this so called resistor?

 

There's one of these on each horn.

 

That looks like a capacitor to me, not a resistor. I'm not sure why GM would put a cap across a horn, doesn't make sense. Do you have a DVM? If so, put it on the OHMs mode and measure across that. Start at the highest ohms range and work your way down. If it's a capacitor it won't read anything. It will look open (no ohms). If it's a resistor you will get a reading on one of the ranges. Or if you have an auto-ranging DVM you just use the ohm (resistance) setting.

 

If your horn system is working properly you should be able to put a test light on the positive side horn wire and it should light when you hit the horn button on the steering wheel. Of course the test light has it's own ground connected. If that doesn't happen you may have a bad horn relay. On the 81 (which is what I have) the horn relay is just above the fuse panel. I had trouble with my horns at first too. They didn't work and I couldn't find them! So I thought someone had taken them off. I was doing some steering wheel replacement and discovered that the horn button wasn't making good contact! The ring that the horn button squeezes together was very rusty and not making good contact. I cleaned that up really good with a small wire brush and the horn worked!

 

the power loss is weird.
you can show 12vdc but it has no amps.
like 1 strand of the wire is connected and shows 12v but any load fries the strand and then no volts.

make sure the green wire is not corroded and
only a few strands are actually showing volts.

 

Oh BTW, you have a wiring diagram, right? If not, check this out:
https://sites.google.com/a/c3vrmail....TY5LgpQeauL1cU

 

Following up on this problem...

Turns out the fuse was bad. Replaced that and he horn works. I'm not sure if it was sort of blown, but not all the way or had corrosion, or what.

If anyone knows what those capacitors/resistors/??? are used for, I'd like to know. I left them off and the horns seem to work OK.

Thanks for the input.

Skip

 

PM sent!