coloradotom

I know, not a really important issue, but it can be nice to have a horn. Where I live I mainly use them to honk at the deer that are about to run out in front of me.

My '91 2wd strippy pickup truck horn doesn't work. I bought the truck from my ex, and it had a working horn when I lived with her. For obvious reasons I don't want to have to ask her if she knows what happened to it.

I checked the fuse, there is one marked horn and hazards. It is fine. And the hazards work.

I tried to locate the wiring that makes the horn work so that maybe I could tap into it where it comes into the steering wheel and reroute it to a doorbell button or something, but when I look at the horn in front of the passenger side of the radiator, I can't see the wire that goes to it. There is however a suspicious looking connector coming out of the side of the horn. I have a hunch that it could be where the horn used to be wired in, before somebody yanked it out of there. But I have no evidence.

I'd like to have a chance to take a peek at this on a truck with a working horn, but I'm guessing somebody out there might have some insight. Here are a couple of pictures showing the suspicious connector:





Any info appreciated.

tj884Rdlx

that is the drain for water to come out the bottom of the horn.

first, test your horn.

remove it and hook it directly to the battery with some jumpers.

if it works ok, then it's your horn contacts in the wheel, as power goes directly to the horn and grounds to the steering wheel when you press the center of it.

if you pulled the steering wheel, you'd see a brass ring pressed into it. a spring-loaded brass dowel pokes up out of the column and maintains contact with the ring. this dowel can lose contact if the spring fails or it gets bent.

test by touching a wire from the brass dowel to any metal and ground out the horn. if that works, then you have a contact issue within your horn button, possibly corrosion keeping ground from completing.

you can swap in another steering wheel if you wish, rather than a door bell.
not all toyota steering wheels have the same diameter brass ring in the wheel. ifound this out the hard way when i installed a 90s steering wheel in my 88, and had to pry one brass ring out and double it up on the other one.

if you use an aftermarket horn to replace a bad horn, you may need to use a relay, where you run power to the relay, and the horn button activates the relay which activates the horn(s).

good luck.