Toggle Switch for horn

My horn stopped working some time ago and to pass the "safety" part of my state inspection I was told I can just hard wire a switch to make it work. I've already replaced the horn fuse a couple times and I even checked that the actual horns worked with some gator clips and the battery (they both work).

So, who has done this and can show me the best place to feed those wires from the horn into the cab? I appreciate the help!

 

In the cab on the left side of the steering wheel, there is a fuse box.
The wire for the horn comes out of it and to the horn. The connection is on the BACKSIDE of the fuse box. Red and green wire. But you should be able to trace. It’s simply a ground wire. Pushing the horn grounds that wire.

Trace the Red/Green wire from there up the horn. Cut and splice in a toggle.

 

I knew somebody would have the exact answer with a nice, simple explanation of what I can do. Thanks for the quick reply!

 

Which state require horns, but is redneck enough to allow them on a simple toggle switch?

 

Have you looked into the clock spring?

 

When the guy at the shop told me I could get away with it I couldn't help but laugh and said "I can't believe they allow that" and per his quote, "All it says is that it has to work, doesn't say how."

 

Texas requires the horn to work for state inspection but they don't care how you make it work.

 

This. Fixed my horn, steering wheel controls, and presumably my airbag this weekend by swapping in a new one. Took about 20 minutes to replace.

 

Except my steering wheel controls work just fine and I don't have any other lights on saying I have an airbag problem.

 

Could be that just one of the wires is busted, not all of them. My steering wheel controls went out over a year before my horn did, and I never got any indication that the airbag didn't work, but figured that I'd rather spend $15 (plus shipping) on a replacement than find out after an accident.

 

Easy to test, get you a test light connected to ground, go to Connector S8 (12 pin connector) at the back of the clockspring, backprobe Pin 8 (Green/Red) with a needle or paperclip, touch that with your test light, and see if the horn honks. If it does then your problem is in the clockspring, if it doesn't then your problem is between the clockspring and horn relay.

 

Check the horn's relay before cutting anything, relays fail (I've had both fuel and fan relays fail in other cars)

 

Happy Birthday

 

Thanks.

 

You already got your answer, where to put a switch, as well as helpful suggestions to check the clock spring and relay... but thought I'd chime in with my two cents anyway.

It is probably the clockspring. You should test it of course, but... it is probably the clockspring. Toyota gets a lot of things right, but not these. They fail -- but not all at once: usually just one conductor stops working. So, it can be just the horn that stops working, without disrupting the cruise, airbag, or radio controls. On mine it was just a cruse conductor and nothing else, so my horn, airbags, and radio controls all worked perfectly for years, but with no cruise.

The clockspring is an easy DIY job... probably easier than wiring up a separate switch! But, it can be a lot more expensive! And this is why I am writing -- if your clockspring is bad, and if and when you decide to replace it, you will see that the cost of an OEM part is over $200! (If you have radio controls on the wheel, at least.) Do you really need to pay that much?

Well, you can find much cheaper options at places like Amazon or eBay. You can get a generic replacement part there for $30-$50... but unfortunately it will stop working the week after the return window closes. No big deal--it was worth a shot to save that much money, right? Now you can step up to the $100 range, for a "Genuine OEM Toyota" one, again on Amazon or Ebay -- that's still over half off the dealership price! This one will show up in a nice red and white Toyota box with the correct part number and official-looking barcodes. But unfortunately it is counterfeit. It's hard to tell that it's counterfeit... but if you look closely and compare it to a genuine one from a dealership, you will see that it's constructed differently and made in a different country. What's that? You don't have a genuine one to compare it to? Well, another way you'll know it's counterfeit is when it stops working in six weeks, and perhaps then you'll finally decide to order a genuine one from a dealership. Now you can compare them when you're doing the job for the third time in three months.

 

It's such a simple circuit, I'd put some time into troubleshooting before I started adding wires and switches. You can go to the relay and do pretty much all the testing you'll need to do.

Use the schematic Tn posted, you'll need 12 volts from the fuse, continuity through the horn switch when pressed and you can jump power to the out-put wire that goes down to the horns. See what the missing ingredient is. All you need is a DMM

Have you tried swapping relays?

 

Clocksprings are common to fail. But since you mentioned you've replaced the fuse a few times that makes me think a power wire is shorting to something.. like a bad relay or horn. When a clockspring fails it usually just goes open circuit. That's different from a hot wire touching something it shouldn't and blowing a fuse..