Need help w/ Steering wheel and embarrassed...

[Jim McKenzie]

I hate to admit my incompetence here...I'm certainly no X mechanic, but this one is really embarrassing to me.

I replaced my 310 mm Momo steering wheel with a larger 330 mm Momo. Easy right? Disconnect negative on battery, pull out horn button, disconnect single spaded wire, Use an Allen wrench to remove six screws....then swap wheels and reverse process. The Momo horn button had two male spaded connectors on it...on in the center of the buttton, one near the outside edge...I connected the center male spade with the existing female spade wire.

Incredibly...with only two possible choices of connector: I've screwed this up. When I reconnected the negative of the battery, the horn started blowing continuously. I disconnected cable, figured no big deal I just I selected wrong spade connector on button, so redid it with the one near the outside edge. The horn started to blow again, for a couple of seconds then stopped, then every few seconds it would repeat blowing for a couple of seconds.

Any guess on what I did wrong? I am amazed at this frankly and now doubt my ability to boil water, inhale and exhale, or walk whilst chewing gum....:whistle:

 

[JimD]

Bent contact?

Hi Jim,

Maybe you are looking at this problem the wrong way. The leads connected to one contact or the other is probably not the issue. Try looking at the position of each contact and see if tone looks to be bent. Could be that they were touching when re-assembled and then when you took it apart and put it back together they were barely touching. Try bending one of the contacts to add a little more clearance in there.

I only mention this because I have a 1998 Ford Econoline that sounds the horn continuously when the weather gets below 30F. I have to pull the horn relay till spring. It has the horn "button" integrated under the airbag in the center of the wheel with nor real button. The goofy contact setup underneath the bag needs to be replaced, but I can't justify the cost right now.

 

[bbrown]

Adendum to Jims

The horn (button) wire is active when it's grounded against the steering column, so be sure the wire goes to the center post (under the button) and that the spring is grounded to the column mount. Sometimes, the spring gets twisted in or out too far, and this can cause a dead or continuous horn.

 

[wannabfast]

well some momo horn buttons have both spades, however the button doesnt ground itself at all, its just a momentary switch, you need to check the wiring from the boss to ensure that the wires arent touching each other

 

[APSilva-87X-TampaFL]

Well we know the horn blows but now what about :censored: ohh never mind.

The X bug has returned and I've been driving mine continuously for the past week. :excited:

I'm off between Xmas and New Year's and I have it on good authority that my cell phone works!