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As our friends across the pond would say, all electrical devices need to go to earth (be grounded). While I was putting things back together on the 51 after the paint job, the horn wouldn't work. I adjusted the contacts at the steering wheel and got it to give a rather sad sounding, sort of Prius wheeze. I then went to look under the hood and noticed that the horn relay had only one of the two screws holding it to the inner fender. I removed the one screw and cleaned it up, and installed a new one, fastening it tightly. Wow, now the horns sound like an ocean liner! Who would have guessed that this little item would make such a difference.

On a similar line, I pulled the instrument panel and pushed all of the copper contacts for the lights out and sanded them. Now I have nice bright dash lights as well as a horn. Life is good....

Great point! You need to think of the body as the ground when you are painting too. Remember to mask off or sand off paint in areas that continue the ground throughout the body of the car.

Ground should always be suspected when electrics don't work or your mouth is full of dirt. Current and gravity, not just a good idea, but the law....