Car Horn Circuitry Issue.

[SephYuyX]

I sort of have a feeling I may be shooting in the dark, but I figured id give it a shot and post this.

I decided to upgrade my car horn just because it's fading a bit, and sounds like a dying whiney rat in general, so wanted something a bit louder. I decided against the big $300+ systems and got this guy Black Hawk Electric Horn Hot Rod Deluxe Train Horn Air Horn

And this is the diagram I made showing how I hooked it up.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/9578/hornw.jpg
If it matters im putting this in a 93 Toyota Corolla.

When it got hooked up, it worked for two presses, and then stopped. I didnt notice any smoke, but I thought I heard some sort of hissing, but I couldnt be sure I did. I plugged in the OEM horn, and then that didn’t work either. I opened up the fuse box and saw none of the blade fuses broken, I also took out the horn relay, but I've no idea if that was blown or not, it’s a coil of wire and I've no idea what I'd look for.

Everything else seems to be working fine still, and I haven’t gotten a chance to unhook the battery for a brief time to see if that resets anything, or take a volt meter to it to see if there is anything at the end of the horn connection.

Do you all have any recommendations? Is it possible that horn relay/coil blew? I noticed that the horn relay (there’s no horn fuse, correct? Or is it shared with something?) is a 20A(?) and I'm using 30A inline and the relay is 12v/30a rated (it was provided with the horn) could that be something? Am I using a wrong inline fuse?

But when plugging in the OEM horn, and it not working.. that means something went poof.. which isn’t good. Again, when checking through all the fuses that I know of, I see none broken, am I missing something? Any clue what it could be?

I thought at first I blew up the compressor, or the provided relay, so I swapped in the OEM horn, but then that didnt work, so I figure the compressor and relay are still fine, and something in the original wiring blew. But what? Im pretty sure I checked all the fuses, and not sure what else there is to it. Button > Fusebox > Horn ? Is there something else that could have blown?

[Korietsu]

From what you're describing, it sounds like you have a short somewhere. You're going to need to take your DMM to the line to check for current.

It could be that the switch in the relay is broken as well.

Not much else other than quite possibly the horn button decided to go pop.

[idklol]

Wouldn't say i'm an expert here but i have a suggestion.

Since upgrading the horn did you rewire it or used the old wiring from the old horn? Maybe you have disturbed the old wire and caused a short like already suggested, or this new horn runs off a higher voltage than the old one and the wiring burnt out.

About fuses, i doubt you would of heard the fuse hissing if that was the problem. Did you check the old fuse was correct for the new horn?

[SephYuyX]

Had time today to take a look at things, still didnt work when I first tried, so I went back and unplugged and checked every fuse there is, nothing broken.

However when I tried it again, it worked.. (the OEM), so thats odd?

I unplugged the OEM, and put the new one in, and it's currently working, but when I went to a some what secluded area to test it out how long it could go to see if it would blow something up, it went fine the first press, but every press after that, the horn would sound by itself for 20+secs, when i tried it again after a few tries it didnt stop at all, so I had to pull over and yank a wire.

Any ideas?

Hard to test it on a weekend when everyone is home working, or driving around the streets, so im afraid to try it anymore today.

Now the little testing I did, it seemed to work normally when the engine was off, but when I was driving around, the horn wouldnt go off, could this have something to do with it?

Not real sure why this would be, everything is hooked up according to regulation, as far as I know, I might hav to put a kill switch in or something now. Im debating whether or not to keep it hooked up, ive a feeling id hit the horn on accident somewhere.

[SephYuyX]

OEM Horn
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3384/21589185.jpg

Eyehole connects to battery, with 30A inline fuse.
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2671/60763163.jpg

My lolcustom bracket for the horn.
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/4622/15747715.jpg

The air 'compressor'.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/5619/91383763.jpg

The wires.
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7906/43537242.jpg

Relay in.
http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/9274/54734154.jpg

Finished product.
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/1351/88742317.jpg

[Cyn]

I don't think I've ever met anyone who really gave a fuck whether or not their horn worked. Are you like a really angry driver or something?

[SephYuyX]

No, just that my car is small (corolla), and tend to get semis crossing over into my lane, so a horn helps greatly.
This horn is the same cost as a replacment (unless you pull one off from a junkyard), so I figured why not get a loud one.

[Cyn]

Well in that case you should try this route I think:

[idklol]

From what you're describing, it sounds like you have a short somewhere. You're going to need to take your DMM to the line to check for current.

It could be that the switch in the relay is broken as well.

Not much else other than quite possibly the horn button decided to go pop.

I would think its one of these tbh. If there was a wiring or fuse fault then the horn wouldn't work at all afaik. Can't say i've ever come across this problem before so i couldn't tell you how to go about testing the above.

[Null]

I don't think I've ever met anyone who really gave a fuck whether or not their horn worked. Are you like a really angry driver or something?

Ha this was my thought as well. But damn I didn't realize horns could cost that much. I was you the best of luck. Got a friend that works on cars coming over later. Maybe he can jump on with some words.

[Korietsu]

I don't think I've ever met anyone who really gave a fuck whether or not their horn worked. Are you like a really angry driver or something?

Have to have a horn to pass inspection here in TX =(.

From the way you have it hooked up seph, it looks like its shorting/fused because it's drawing too much current off the battery. Or its because of the ghetto rig you've got going with the electrical tape/wiring.

[SephYuyX]

I seemingly have the issue worked out, I was provided a cheap relay in which the switch is kept switched on due to a bad release.

Bought a Bosch Relay off amazon for 3$ (NAPA wanted 25$ for it, lul), and that should solve all the issues.


And yes, I do want a train horn, however a train horn on a car is just silly.
That and the horn itself costs $1500 as they arent made in mass anymore, and can only really be salvaged (or stolen off of trains lol)

Nathan Airchime K5LA is the only acceptable train horn.

[Cyn]

Ok, now I think you just have some sort of strange horn fetish.

[SephYuyX]

Haha, naw, just a mild interest for odd hobbies.

[Chicomagiko]

I want my car horn to play "La Cucaracha" But the K5LA is pretty sweet.

[Feielle]

I guess you already fixed it, so nothing real to add except this:

Mk1 VW Rabbit with a tugboat horn in it:
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...e/DSCN3806.jpg

bigger = better.

[guartz]

Train Horns & Train Horn Kits : Loudest Air Horns Online


best fucking website... eva!

[Brill Weave]

Make sure you don't work on this if it's raining. Moisture seeps into the interface and can cause your horn to literally stay on for ten minutes and there's nothing you can do about it. Funny shit when it happens at three in the morning though. Not so funny when it's your neighbor's car and you already hate the guy to begin with

[SephYuyX]

Oddly enough I was working on it the first time at 1am on a rainy night >.>;

[SephYuyX]

Update..

I got my new relay in, its a 12V 20/30A relay from Bosch http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=330-070 and could feel the difference btwn the one that came with the horn, so good quality.

However.. when I went to hook it up, it's now blowing the 30A inline fuse. Great, so I hooked up the original relay (which was working fine aside from it sticking), and now thats blowing a fuse too......

Wtf? Really? Really starting to get pissed. Wasnt blowing a fuse before, but now it is. But in the OEM and thats still working fine.

So now the new horn wont work at all, and I have NO idea what could be causing the inline fuse to blow when it wasnt blowing before.

What could be causing this?

Seems like it really is a circuitry issue now, but wtf is causing the fuse to blow now, when it wasnt before? Thats just odd.



Edit: OK, false alram it seems, I started going over and thinking what causes a fuse to blow, so I figured a wire went loose somewhere, and there was, so I rechecked everything, buttoned it all up, and now everything works perfectly. For now!

But a road test and everything went great.