Horns dead, what did I do?

So I was trying to move my horns as part of installing an aftermarket bumper. I took loose the brackets, pulled off the connectors, moved the bracket/horn assembly, plugged them back up, hooked the battery back up and tried the horn.... I got a single weak, fading hooo...nk, and then nothing. I thought maybe I'd mixed up the driver & passenger side ones and they had to be installed exactly like that, so I went out and swapped them, but still nothing.

What the heck did I do? Is this more likely to be a relay or a fuse or what? It's dark now and due to rain tomorrow so I probably won't have much opportunity to do a lot of circuit testing. Would love to hear from you guys as to "this is the most likely thing, test this first". Thanks.

sounds like they may not be getting a good ground

Where would the ground be? (there only appeared to be a single wire, I think green, attached to the connector on either side). Or are the attaching bolts supposed to be the ground?

the bolt IS the ground, so make sure you have it attached to nice clean bare metal

Ground or the fuse. Grab your $8 - 23 volts/ohms multi-meter you bought at the hardware store, home improvement store, or WalMart type store, and test for 12 volts at the horns, and check for a good ground continuity.

Interesting. I used the same bolts in the same holes, only with the brackets turned differently. I'll have to go out and scrape some corrosion off tomorrow and see if that is enough.

katuah said:

Interesting. I used the same bolts in the same holes, only with the brackets turned differently. I'll have to go out and scrape some corrosion off tomorrow and see if that is enough.

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Just scuff all mating surfaces with some sandpaper & like said above have someone hit the horn & check for 12 volts on the connectors.

Did you try CPR? Wow I crack myself up...

This is odd reading this because when I built my bumper I just set the horns in the engine bay and they still work fine?? And they were just single wired.

clean your connectors?

mine are filthy and only 1 horn works. getting good readings from the multi, so my guess is that the horn is crapped out from snow, mud, and water. when i swap them, the one remaining horn still works fine. why yours crapped out, idk.

Hey Breezio, what year is yours?

All connectors and horns are clean, worked just fine two weeks ago and I haven't really driven it since then. It's pretty hard to test 12v cos I don't have a helper to hit the horn while I hold the meter. Fuse looks good, but I may swap it just in case. Can I trade a relay to test that? Which one?

Gonna get new screws today, the old ones appear to be kinda corroded. Maybe I'll get lucky and that will be enough!