Horn doesnt work...

[hannibal64]

my horn doesnt work on my 90 cutlass international... has ECC and DIS .... with the controls on the wheel .. maybe fuse or just dirty connections?

 

just bought the thing.. and have no clue..

 

btw its a quad 4 5 speed if that helps any.

[GutlessSupreme]

I'd go aground and check all the fuses. The interior box is underneath the bin instead the glove compartment, in case you didn't know. I think the only horn related fuse is in there.

[DiscoStudd]

Do you hear a "click" when you press the horn button? That would at least indicate that the button and relay are functioning, and the problem lies within the horn itself.

 

Locate one of the horns under hood, disconnect the wire, probe the connnector with a multi-meter and have someone press the horn button. If it reads 12v, then you need new horns. If there is no voltage, check the fuses and the horn relay.

 

You might also want to remove the horn pad on the steering wheel and see if the red wire is properly connnected (it should be depressed and locked inside of the "cancelling cam.") Some GM horn pads have a large metal tab in the middle that rests on the steering column's shaft when the pad is in place to ground out the pad. It may be as simple as bending the tab out a bit.

[z34_nut]

i replaced the whole horn botton in my old cutlass international.

[hannibal64]

got it to work.. wasnt locked inside the cancelling cam and wont lock in... pushed it all the way in and put the pad back on and hoped for the best... works good now though.

[Brian P]

be careful, them side horn pads with the controls have a tendency of sticking. Shawn could tell ya how to modify it just in case. It's probably why it was disconnected in the first place.

[GnatGoSplat]

Yep, that's just what I was thinking, they probably pulled the horn fuse or relay because the side horns were sticking. That can be pretty embarrassing.

 

Anyway, I didn't actually modify anything, I just unplugged the side horns and left the middle horn connected. The side horns consists of 2 metal plates that work as switch contacts, one has a bump in it. There is a spongy material separating the 2 plates. Over time, the spongy material breaks down allowing the bump in one plate to touch the other plate. I experimented with different materials like thin sheets of sponge and that white packing foam. I never found anything that worked very well.

[DiscoStudd]

got it to work.. wasnt locked inside the cancelling cam and wont lock in... pushed it all the way in and put the pad back on and hoped for the best... works good now though.

I should've mentioned that you have to push it down and turn it clockwise to lock it in place :oops: ...

[hannibal64]

got it to work.. wasnt locked inside the cancelling cam and wont lock in... pushed it all the way in and put the pad back on and hoped for the best... works good now though.

I should've mentioned that you have to push it down and turn it clockwise to lock it in place :oops: ...

 

wont push all the way in.. spring compresses and wont let the plastic sleeve lock in... :?

[DiscoStudd]

Did you try rotating the sleeve around 180* before attempting to lock it? On some GM's the horn connector has 2 tabs on it, and one is higher up on the shaft than the other. If you have the wrong side in there, it won't lock down so you need to spin it around to bring the "lower" tab into the right position...

[hannibal64]

the sleeve was broken a little at the end where the spring is. so i hope it keeps working.. if it doesnt ill try and find another center for my steering wheel.

[joberlee]

IIRC the wire that runs from the horn btton to the column is interchangeable with about 20 years worth of GM columns.

[DiscoStudd]

I'd venture to say you could go back 35 years to the 1970 model year when they began using the "saginaw" steering column design. Even though GM deviated from the saginaw design over the years, the steering wheels on every GM made since then are interchangable..