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I have a 1941 Packard 120 Convertible and I am trying to find a schematic or diagram of the horn parts that are inside the steering wheel. My horn has not worked since I got the car and I tried to get parts from Tucson Packard and am shooting in the dark until I find a schematic so I can see if I am missing any parts. Can anyone steer me to how to find this item so I can make sure I have all of the parts etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bill Jones Jr. aka willie J

Quote:
Bill or Willie or whoever you are,

Don't have a schematic offhand but maybe this post in the Wade's Workshop Project Blog will help. In addition to the small spring there is a much larger diameter spring between the horn ring and the head of the steering column. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the big spring but I think I've pic's of all the other parts. And a word of warning, for your horn wire use something with some flexibility in it. How do I know? Lost the horn twice when the wire broke up at the horn contact end because it didn't twist enough!

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Thanks Mal, we're workin' on it, on the phone with Bill now...

That's great Eric. I presume Garden City is some way from Wichita?

Yes, quite a ways, but all of us Kansas Packard boys stick together when it comes to keeping our cars on the road!

Mal,

My name is Bill and my sign in name is Willie J so either one works. Thanks for sending the photos. It appears that the small spring is missing from my assembly. Everything else appears to be there. One question I do have is how tight should the three screws that come in from the back of the steering wheel and attach the spoke assembly to the plastic part of the wheel be?

Mine was screwed down so tight that you could not even rock the horn ring assembly. There are two different lengths of screws that hold the horn ring assembly to the steering wheel. One is about 3/8 inch long and the other is about 1/2 inch long. These screws are a small diameter phillips head screw and the head of the screw kind of has a shoulder on it and that shoulder is about 3/16 of an inch long.

Thanks for the help.

Willie J

Bill


The screws should allow a just a little wiggle so you can easily sound the horn. It's easy enough to take it apart so that you can experiment- you'll figure it out in two or three tries. You'll want to make sure to disconnect the battery every time you remove the horn button.....

Your neighbors might appreciate your stuffing rags into the bells of the horns if you spend much time playing with them....

Regards

John Harley

Willie J,

It's obvious my very inept attempt at humor with the name game thing lacked something in putting it into print.

Glad to be able to help. Regarding the small screws, all mine are the same length, whether that was 3/8" or 1/2" I don't know now. You can see them in the pic's on the back of the horn ring if that helps any. In screwing the horn ring back on with these screws I did it as tight as I could and there was still movement for horn operation. Maybe that says they were all short 3/8" screws. And as I said in my Wade's workshop post "determined that the spring required is about 3/16" x 5/8"" and I think John sourced his from his junk box, or lucky dip, or whatever you want to call it.

Mal & group,

I was able to get the horn working with the excellent photos of the 41 horn ring assembly. FYI what I ended up using for screws was 1/2" long by 6x32 allen head screws. I found them at the local hardware store. The allen head screws were the perfect diameter to go through the back of the plastic part of the steering wheel. I hooked up the electric part and tightened each one equally until the horn honked by itself and loosened each one about 1/3 to 1/2 turn we then lock tight after we got the adjustment right and now it works like it should.

For the spring I looked in my junk box and found it hard to come up with one that was small enough in diameter to go into the plastic button. I spied an old cell phone car charger that was not working and put it in my vise and cracked it like a walnut and extracted the spring. The spring was perfect in diameter, length and tension. So I used it.

This proves that you should never ever throw away something that might have some use in your classic car.

Now I have to rebuild the passenger side horn or find a replacement one. I will cover this request in another post.

Willie J

"This proves that you should never ever throw away something that might have some use in your classic car."

Yes. AMEN! More people need to learn that. Even broken or worn out parts can serve well as patterns and mock-up.