i installed a APC steering wheel with a grant adapter. worked perfectly. my question is, how do i hook up the horn? my car is a 87 GT. there is a plastic tube with a pin and a spring for the horn originally. HELP??
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10:18 PM
PFF
System Bot
Feb 6th, 2005
shawnkfl Member
Posts: 2457 From: Largo, Florida Registered: Oct 2004
Do you have the horn button(s) on the new wheel? It(they) should plug into the plastic tube wire. The horn button grounds it to complete the circuit when it is depressed.
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10:26 AM
shawnkfl Member
Posts: 2457 From: Largo, Florida Registered: Oct 2004
the aftermarket wheel came with a wire to connect the horn but the instruction are terrible at best. i can see where one end goes on the aftermarket horn button but i don't know where to hook up the other end of the wire.
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10:40 AM
avengador1 Member
Posts: 35468 From: Orlando, Florida Registered: Oct 2001
Did it come with a horn button kit? As I stated above, all the horn button does is ground out the horn wire to complete the horn circuit. The horn button is spring loaded to keep this contact open. The spring loaded tube ensures that the wire remains in contact with a ring, below the steering wheel, while you turn the wheel. If you touch this wire to ground, the horn should sound. That also is where you should hook up your horn button to.
[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 02-06-2005).]
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10:58 AM
shawnkfl Member
Posts: 2457 From: Largo, Florida Registered: Oct 2004
sorry about that....it did come with a horn button. and it's spring loaded. there are two contack lugs on the back side so i assume one end of the wire connects to one of them. the other end of the wire has a "bell" shaped connector on it. does that slide up through the plastic fiero tube to make contact with the pin? if so, it jams the spring down, as if the factory horn was being pressed. so i assume that it jams the spring down to keep contack and then the aftermarket horn button has it's own built in. my battery is dead so i can't test it out yet. thanks for the input. i'll charge up my battery and try it out today.
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12:02 PM
AnimalGT Member
Posts: 1118 From: Chicago, IL Registered: Jul 2001
On my Grant steering wheel the horn button had a built-in switch and two male connectors sticking out the back for the wires to be connected to. The horn button didn't have a proper ground to touch, so I ran a wire from one of the botton's male connectors to the steering wheel adpater (as a ground source) and then ran the factory horn wire to the other connector on the Grant's horn button. When the horn buttom is pushed, the internal switch makes connection and the factory horn wire grounds, which activates the horn. I assume this is basically how your horn mechanism works on your steering wheel also.
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12:45 PM
shawnkfl Member
Posts: 2457 From: Largo, Florida Registered: Oct 2004
is that the paddle type horn buttons originally? i ask because i don't have a wire for mine (GT) just a plunger thingy. maybe if i tore into the column deeper i'd find a wire but i can't believe i have to go through all that.
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05:12 PM
bonzo Member
Posts: 1350 From: Jacksonville, FL, USA Registered: Jul 2003
It's been awhile since i installed my APC steering wheel. If I remember right, I had to do a little modification to get the horn to work. One side of the horn switch goes to ground. If I get a chance I will pop of the switch and take a look. Right now is not a good time, the game will be starting in about an hour.
The kit should have come with a plunger assembly that fit into the plastic sleeve, with a wire that went from the plunger to the horn button. The plunger actually touches a metal ring in the cancel cam under the lock plate, and there is a contactor on the turn signal switch assembly that rubs this metal ring to provide a path to complete the circuit. There's not really a way to hook this up without the plunger assembly.
