Lost horn & courtesy light!

[Andy W]

Well, not literally lost, but in the sense of them not working..!

Where to start, are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I"ll begin......

Firstly - AAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!!, I hate electrics - my knowledge extends merely to the fact that smoke lives in wires & when you mess with your electrics, the smoke escapes & makes things go badly wrong!

Off work in agony from my back & dosed up to the eyeballs with a ridiculous assortment of painkillers - it seemed like the perfect time for Andy to sit sort of comfortably in his re-foamed & restrapped driver's seat & fit his replacement indicator switch/stalk...WRONG..!

In the absence of a huge box spanner out came the hammer & chisel but "that" nut would not budge!
No way to take off the indicator stalk cover.
Hmm, I'll remove the steering column bracket & see what happens....what happened was as I lowered the column, the metal sleeve with stalk switch slid down the column...Goodness me, that was a surprise to me, but not as much of a surprise as the horn coming on.............& staying on.........it's a very loud horn!
"Oh dear me" & "well I never did..." were my exact utterances I promise you as I yanked the bonnet pull & hastily hobbled around the front to tug the wires off the horn....Phew! Don't know what that was about but I'll worry about the horn wires later.....

Replacing the stalk switch went well with flashers & stalk bulb working fine; & very pleasing too, to have an unbroken stalk.

I duly put the steering column bracket back on, popped the horn wires back on the horn & felt rather relieved....for a moment....NO HORN OR COURTESY LIGHT! - eh?!

Well, several back pain wracked hours later I am at a total loss....
There is power to the permanently live fuse.
The purple wires coming out from that fuse are both live.
One leads to the horn & is live all the way down.
Where does the purple & black horn return wire even go?
The horn works if wired straight to + & - on the battery.
The second purple wire (which comes into the dash) appears not to be live (a coincidentally timed break inside the loom?)
The horn push switch is fine BUT where does that horn push central wire go? If it comes out under the car somewhere then it can wait - I'm not up to crawling underneath just now!

Any & all advice needed & appreciated!

Andy.

[andy.pointeer]

The only place the horn and courtesy light come together is the fuse. The fuse has two purple wires, one to horn and one to courtesy light.

Was the courtesy light working before the work on the switch?
If yes, recheck that the fuse is ok and that the contacts on fuse holder are clean.

The horn push wire is one of the wires from the column switch (was brown/black on my switch), this is connected to the purple/black from horn, check you have made all the connection fully.

Hope this helps

[Andy W]

The horn push wire is one of the wires from the column switch (was brown/black on my switch), this is connected to the purple/black from horn, check you have made all the connection fully.

Ah, does that switch wire connect to the flat metal flexible connector which then keeps contact with the metal ring on the column top?
I presume then that the metal ring connects to the push centre wire inside the column - which I can not see as the steering wheel is still on?

[andy.pointeer]

It was some time ago when I did my switch change. From memory, the wire to the horn push is a spring arrangement under the push button. I don’t remember how the metal ring/contact is used, but does need to make contact.

Others may have more information

[Andy W]

Phew, thanks Andy, that was the clue I needed!

The brown switch wire goes to the purple/black...my brown wire has obviously developed a fault within the column so I have rigged up a temporary horn switch under the dash for now (until I can get hold of a socket big enough form the column nut).

Funny how once you start messing with the electrics, that fine balance between old age, grime, breaking wires, dodgy connections etc seems to go bananas...I ended up blowing 2 fuses & having to remove the fuse "box" & give it a major clean up before everything would work again!

[IslipMinor]

Andy,

The steering wheel nut needs a 3/4" BSW/7/8" BSF socket. An alternative is 1 5/16" (1 & 5/16") AF or a metric 33mm. You might get away with a 6-point 34mm, but it is a bit big.

[johngrigg]

This may be helpful
/www.mmoc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=65110
Cheers
JohnG

[bmcecosse]

Just hit the chisel harder!