I've got an '88 with a tilt wheel, no airbag. My horn has worked intermittently for nearly a year now. It seems to work when it wants to and not when I need it to. I nearly got sideswiped by an inattentive driver on a cell phone making a lane change because I couldn't "announce" my presence with my horn so I'm motivated to finally fix it.
The horn circuit is very simple. A spring loaded plunger sits under the steering wheel in contact with a spring steel plate. When you press the horn button, you press the plate until it contacts the steering column completing the ground to energize the horn relay. Everything in the horn circuit checks out OK. I can even run a jumper from the plunger to any ground (well almost, read on) and get the horn to blast. Any ground except the steering column itself.
My DVOM has an "audible" setting that plays a tone when continuity is detected. When I connect it to a known good ground and to my steering column at the steering wheel end, I get either no tone or a "scratchy" one. Measuring the resistance I got nearly 1k ohms. If I tilt the wheel to different positions or turn the wheel, the resistance fluctuates pretty wildly. If I press real hard on wheel itself, as if trying to bind the column, I can finally get tone and read a very low resistance.
Soooooo..... It seems that my column is not grounding properly. All other controls in the column work fine.
So, is there some kind of connection inside the column to ground the shaft? I can't believe the shaft only grounds by its connection along it length to the steering box and then to the chassis. The FSM and parts guide don't reveal any real details. I'd don't want to just start ripping my column apart unless there's no other way. I'd prefer to find the cause and fix it rather than jury-rig some other kind of horn button.
TIA
The horn circuit is very simple. A spring loaded plunger sits under the steering wheel in contact with a spring steel plate. When you press the horn button, you press the plate until it contacts the steering column completing the ground to energize the horn relay. Everything in the horn circuit checks out OK. I can even run a jumper from the plunger to any ground (well almost, read on) and get the horn to blast. Any ground except the steering column itself.
My DVOM has an "audible" setting that plays a tone when continuity is detected. When I connect it to a known good ground and to my steering column at the steering wheel end, I get either no tone or a "scratchy" one. Measuring the resistance I got nearly 1k ohms. If I tilt the wheel to different positions or turn the wheel, the resistance fluctuates pretty wildly. If I press real hard on wheel itself, as if trying to bind the column, I can finally get tone and read a very low resistance.
Soooooo..... It seems that my column is not grounding properly. All other controls in the column work fine.
So, is there some kind of connection inside the column to ground the shaft? I can't believe the shaft only grounds by its connection along it length to the steering box and then to the chassis. The FSM and parts guide don't reveal any real details. I'd don't want to just start ripping my column apart unless there's no other way. I'd prefer to find the cause and fix it rather than jury-rig some other kind of horn button.
TIA