72 Horn

[jmp]

Ok, yet another post about horns.

First, I know some vettes have 2 horns -- what about the 72 vette? I can see one horn, but didn't look for a second one.

Anyway, my horn used to work but now all it does is click. The clicking is not coming from the horn, but appears to be coming from the relay. I have no idea what that means.

I wired up the horn directly and it works. I tested for power at the horn, and there is no power.

So, is it the relay? What's that clicking sound? Can I pull the horn wire from the relay (I assume it is still the green one) and connect my volt meter to see if power's coming out of the relay? What about power going in to the relay -- how do I check that?

If I can manage to pull the relay off the fender wall, can I just open it up to check it, or do I just replace the whole thing?

Thanks.

 

[Piet]

Sounds like a bad ground... <edit: Just saw that you tried wiring directly>
(Try test light on power out of relay?)

 

[JohnZ]

The clicking is the horn relay closing, which is supposed to connect 12V power to the terminal with the green wire to the horns - use your voltmeter or a test light to see if you have 12 volts at that terminal. If you do, the horn should work if it's grounded (you said it worked when wired direct). If you don't have 12 volts at that terminal when the relay clicks, the secondary contact points in the relay have failed.

 

[pizza3260]

horn

just went thru it on my 73, it is the relay.
tom

 

[jmp]

Retested on the weekend:
Horn works when connected directly to 12V.
Power coming out of relay (~11.5V)
Power coming out at the horn (~11.5V) -- note, before I said that this was not the case, but I think I had a bad ground when hooking up my voltmeter.

So...

Like I said before (some other thread, though! ), I'm an electrical newbie, but I'm guessing that the horn's ground is bad. Does that sound resonable?

 

[jmp]

I took my car back in and had the horn looked at. Turns out it is bad. It also turns out that the second horn has been removed from my car, including the connection to that second horn (i.e. somebody didn't just remove the horn, but also all wires and wire connectors to the horn).

It seems that the more I look at the details of my car, the more I find that some previous owner has modified it. Luckily I knew that it was not 'original', and the price I paid reflected that. Still, I was hoping to get the car as original as possible -- that's going to cost more and more, I fear.

 

[GaryS]

Others have given you good advice on horn issues. Starting in 72 GM went to one horn. Sounds funky but maybe it was a cost issue. Anyhow, you only have one original horn despite the fact that the car sounds better with two.
Gary