Alright, first person to figure this out wins a cookie!!

As long as i've had my truck, it's horn hasn't worked and the blinkers would sometimes stop working. If i played with the hazard switch it would eventually work. So yesterday i was trying to fix the horn. i took apart the steering wheel, and the steering column, and eventually the "magic sticks" (blinker/wiper switches) I didn't get the horn working but when i put everything back together, i couldn't get the blinkers to work. So i used a voltmeter, and unplugged the wire harness that goes into the magic sticks and there was voltage coming from the wire harness part, so the problem was between the wire harness and the magic sticks. After lots of testing, i found out that the wires for the blinker and the horn were "broken." They just stopped conducting. I used the ohm setting on the voltmeter, nothing. I used the broken wire and plugged plugged it into a power wire, nothing.

So, for now, i replaced those sections of wire, and my blinker consists of 3 exposed wires taped to my blinker magic stick. The power wire in the center, and the two blinker wires on either side. To signal, i move the center wire to the left or right. Pretty ghetto. So, it looks like i'll have to find a magic stick at the junkyard.

Has anyone heard of a wire that has stopped conducting. I stripped the ends off, and the copper looks shiny and new. So....who wants a cookie?

 

Dear Cookie Monster,

You may want to fill the class in on what year, make and ummm model rig you are working on.

Love, anonymous

 

the copper wire itself doesn't stop conducting, what has happened is an open circuit has occured somewhere. The easiest way it to track down the bad area, is with a meter, once you narrow it down, you can pull on the wire, where the copper is broken, the plastic housing will stretch and pull apart.

 

your fuse is corroded and you need to pull it out and clean the contacts.

 

Its not the fuse. I cut out a section of the blinker wire and tested it and it didn't conduct. Same thing with the other 2 wires for the blinkers.

 

is it a solid wire? that you nkow for sure? there could be an issue with the wire having been pinched or something and although the wire on the outside of the sleeve is fine, it may have broken on the inside and htus a broken wire cant conduct electricity even if the outside shielding/insulation appears ok

 

Ok well on the horn thing first. I was reading Corey's Tech write-up on his louder horns mod. In there he mentions how the contacts under the horn buttons complete a path to ground. So I'm just gonna shoot blanks in the dark here and guess that's where your open might be in the horn circuitry when you are ohming it out. press the horn when you ring out that wire to get continuity. Now on the final ground termination for those circuits(not a clue where that might be) you could have corrosion causing high resistance in your path to ground OR the ground termination itself has worked loose and as such become an itermittant or permanant "OPEN" in that circuit as well. My best reccomendation would be look up a schematic for those circuits and study them carefully. Also when you check for voltage are you placing your leads wire to wire or are you tryin to complete a path straight to ground? If not you should try that by going red lead to one wire (or voltage contact)and black lead to a good ground. Do that on both sides of the circuit.

 

Bob,I think you need another dose of Viagra to get your "Magic" stick working again.
hehe