Horn wiring

[58Apache]

I'm pretty good on electrical in general, but car specific wiring I am a little weak on.

I put a Haywire wiring harness in my Chevelle, so it's not factory correct by any means. In fact, I wired in some extras including relays for the headlights. Works great! I know I didn't NEED them, but wanted to improve the current getting to the lights.

Anyway, I'm about to wire up the horn, and I THINK I know what's going on, but need confirmation.

When you press the horn button on the steering wheel, you're supplying  a ground to a relay to energize the coil right?

Which means I need a hot wire going to the relay on one side of the coil, and it will be hot 100% of the time, so it needs a fuse right?

The green wire that says "to horn" will only supply this ground to the relay and it will NOT be "hot" right?

So if all of the above is correct, I should be able to use a generic relay like what I used for the lights to make the horn work?

                                          Steve

[34ford]

Steve,

I have a 21 fuse haywire panel in my coupe. The horn has a relay in the panel as well as a fuse for the relay. Don't know if yours is the same but should be. Look in your paper work, the fuse for the horn is #3 and the relay for the horn is the one in lower right corner.


bc

[Charlie Chops 1940]

Take a look at http://www.danielsternlighting.com for light relay diagrams. The horn, fans and just about anything else within the current of your relay use the same diagram.

And yes, you are just completing the ground circuit with the horn button

[58Apache]

Thanks guys. I do remember them saying there was a horn relay built into the fuse box now. I forgot about that!

So that SHOULD be 12 volts at the green wire that's marked for the horn then!

I looked and found the fuse was blown!  ....I replaced it ....and I STILL have a problem.

Ok. tore into the steering wheel now.

Standby for NEWS!

[WZ JUNK]

Thanks guys. I do remember them saying there was a horn relay built into the fuse box now. I forgot about that!

So that SHOULD be 12 volts at the green wire that's marked for the horn then!

I looked and found the fuse was blown!  ....I replaced it ....and I STILL have a problem.

Ok. tore into the steering wheel now.

Standby for NEWS!

Sometimes aftermarket harnesses have more than one function fused but only one of them is labeled on the fuse box.  You might looked at the back of the fuse box and check if another circuit is also on the horn fuse.  Chances are that something wrong in the column would cause the horn wire to go to ground and thus make the horn honk and not blow the fuse.  Check to see if you can make the horn honk by just grounding the wire that goes to the column.

Just my thoughts.

John

[enjenjo]

As I recall, on a painless harness, all you have to do is connect the green wire to a horn. The control wire is in the column harness, it's black, and hooks up through the signal switch in the column. The green wire will not be hot, until the black wire is grounded.

[58Apache]

Ok, a friend assembled the steering wheel for me when we were in a hurry to get the car on the road last year. It looks like I'm missing some parts.

The steering wheel is an aftermarket generic (no name can be found) 3 spoke wheel.

Can someone point me to a generic complete kit that will work? Did I see something about some of the kits having a turn signal canceling device?

                      Steve

[enjenjo]

You still have the original column? Under the stock steering wheel was a plastic horn contact/cancelling cam. You can reuse that with an aftermarket wheel. If you pitched it, you can get one at the parts store.