Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

I have a 1947 2106. The horn has not worked since I owned it!

I have run checks on the relay and found the wire to the horn ring was not connected to anything. Reason 1!

From the wiring diagram, it appears the horn ring acts as a contact switch to put a positive ground on the relay.

To check the relay, I touched a wire from the S terminal on the relay to the positive cable on the battery. It worked. So that checks out the relay and horns.

It looks like the wire running from the disk in the center of the steering wheel needs to attached to the positive ground side of the wiring system.

That center disk is only twisted to the wire coming out of the steering column...it is not soldered or connected.

What is the best way to get that wire out of the steering column so it can be soldered and reinstalled?

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The horn button or ring (both work identically) simply completes a ground circuit so, if the wire itself is intact, the problem is in the wheel connections. I know there are other posts here with this exact issue and which show nice diagrams and photos but I'm on the road with only an iDevice where I can't easily check. Bottom line is to see how the ground connection is made. With the wheel off, if you touch the contact on the top end of the wire to ground, does the horn sound? If it does, that will eliminate a problem with the wire so then check how it is grounded when the ring is pressed.

The wire will pull thru and out the top of the steering shaft if the connector which connects the wire to the main harness at the base of the steering box is disconnected. Getting it back in can be a bit more involved. Because the wire is so flexible I found it is generally a pain to try and feed from the top back down because the path narrows at the steering box. It is fairly easy to pull down if you run a stiff pull wire thru the column from the bottom and out the top. Attach the horn wire to that pull wire and pull it back down thru the box. As mentioned, the path narrows at the bottom so the method you use to attach the pull wire to the horn wire needs to be very slim -- barely larger than the wire with no bulky tape joint.

Electrically, the horn ring grounds that wire via a path thru the various pieces. Here is a breakdown of the ring setup with the grounded pieces in red and the relay or horn wire side pieces in blue. The electrical contact is from a tiny gap around the edge of the chrome ring which touches an inner plate when the ring is pushed. The other illustration shows the wire path thru the steering box. There is a narrow guide tube which provides a path for the wire thru the oil and rotating parts in the box. That tube ends in the bottom of the shaft where the narrow part is evident in the drawing. Same steering box setup used from at least 40 thru 54.

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Much thanks, as usual!!

Don,
Thank you very much.

before you pull the wire out tie a long piece of dental floss to the end, works great

Floss is a great idea!!
Thanks

Floss is a great idea. Just make sure it is tied so the terminal can't flex on the wire at the end and want to hang at the narrow spot. Maybe a piece of tape over the floss and terminal so terminal is kept in a straight line.

I did a video for the K steering wheel but it is a good reference for the T steering wheel also.
youtube.com/watch?v=6pWj4FiyxMs&t=143s
Wes