moved my horns and now they don't work

Went and relocated my horns over the drivers side wheel well today. Seemed pretty straight forward. Unbolt the horns, unplug the cables, pop the wire clips, backtrack the wire, plug the horns back in and bolt them to the wheel well. After doing all this I went to go test my horns and they weren't working. I can't seem to figure out why this happened, I might just be missing something dumb and small here, but does anyone have any ideas what could be going on?

 

Check the grounding. The horns must be grounded to function.

 

You don't have a good ground the horn is grounded thru the body so if it isn't a clean surface where you mounted them they won't work

 

What the other 2 guys said.

Unless the cable got cut somehow.

 

pretty sure they ground through the mounting hardware. how did you re-mount it and where?

 

This.

 

x5!

I had this same problem. Be sure your new location, the mounting bracket is bolted to an unpainted surface.

 

I must concurre with the consensus. Check your ground. Easy check would be run a wire from the negative post of your battery and touch it to the mounting bolt for the horn while someone is pushing the horn button. Or you could just make sure you have good metal to metal contact.

 

thanks for info. i'll check it out tomorrow when its not freezing cold outside.

 

bumping an old thread because i'm having the same issue but i'm not sure it's a grounding issue. i installed the horns with the snail opening facing up so they got full of water. i have not been able to get all the water out. anyone else encounter a wet horn issue?

 

If they have not "sat" too long full of water try squirting them, into the horn, with WD-40. Let them sit a bit then drain out any excess, then connect 'em to 12V (repeatedly if needed) and see if they will squawk and then honk. The "WD" in WD-40 stands for Water Displacing which is what it was invented for, in the aerospace industry. The "40" is because it was the 40th formula they developed.

It's a crappy lubricant but it works great for its intended purpose...

 

nice, thanks man. i'll give it a shot.

 

No pun intended right?

Just out of curiosity, with gravity working the way it does why did you mount them with the opening facing up?

 

it was just a dumb thing for me to do. i think wiring for the supercharger water pump is tied to the horn loom and so there's not much play to move the horns about to a nice mounting location. basically, i installed them where they fit.

 

I'd love to be able to tell you I have never been in one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" places--but I can't...

Let us know if the WD-40 does any good. Repeat applications are OK too as it is electrically non-conductive¹, spray away...

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¹ - I had a '74 Jeep w/ a Buick V6 that would stall if you drove it by a drinking fountain. Carried a can of WD with me and when it did I'd pop the distributor cap and we down the rotor and cap with it, then put the cap back on and spray the coil and wires for good measure--it would pop right off after that and run great until the next fording...

 

You're right about the naming.

But it wasn't designed to be a lubricant as many think. It was designed as a parts cleaner for the atlas missiles.

It is hygroscopic which will attract moisture back into whatever you spray it with and make it rust again. It will penetrate the rust to dissolve it, but will need to be followed up with a propper lubricant (mineral, Teflon, graphite).

 

Oh, you can buy replacement horns at , $8 with one of their 20% off coupons. Pretty much the same as the OEM horns, if the chrome bothers you just hit 'em with some flat black from a rattle-can...

 

As I stated WD-40 was not designed as such and is a crappy lubricant; however it is not hygroscopic though this is a common myth. Being 90-95% petroleum based hydrocarbons (here's the MSDS) which are immiscible with water it fundamentally cannot be--nor will it dissolve in water. If it were hygroscopic this would be near impossible to prevent.

Wikipedia has a great entry about it...

This is from the MSDS:

 

nice infos, never knew this