'66 horn sounding off

[Kevin B.]

So I thought I would give my 14yr son a ride from the bus stop 1-mile away and during the ride back home, with my left hand on the steering wheel and right hand on the shifter, I'm poking down our dirt road and the horn sounds off!

Day or two later I had a few minutes to spare and thought I'd pop the hood open and look for some loose wires..as soon as I pulled back on the hood release latch under the dash the horn went off. I grabbed the steering wheel to shake it and then it went off as soon as I touched it. Has my car become possessed or do I have a short somewhere? Anyone ever have this happen? Can I use threads from similar issues with '67 or our the '66 unique? My car has the 327, no a/c, no power windows.
The first time the horn sounded off while riding home my left foot briefly retouched the clutch. Is there something loose and touching the frame underneath the dash?

[Tim E.]

Re: '66 horn sounding off

Kevin - I'm pretty sure you'll actually find the problem behind the horn button in the hub of the steering column. There are some moving parts, plastic parts, spring loaded parts, and if any of those plastic parts or insulators break or crack, the horn contact will "go to ground" and blow the horn.

Grab hold of the steering wheel and force it up, down, to the side, and in and out to see if you can recreate the problem. Assuming you can, you'll need to pry off the horn button, remove the spring loaded horn button plate, remove the spring loaded contact, and then pull the steering wheel. Inspect the plastic insulator that the spring loaded contact fits into. Inspect the 3 plastic rivets that hold the spring loaded horn button contact together.

Be sure to disconnect the battery before removing any of these parts.

It's also possible that if the upper steering column bearing (the one near the steering wheel hub) is worn or has slipped out of the column, there will be enough play in the steering wheel to short the circuit and blow the horn.

Hope that helps, Tim

[Domenic T.]

Re: '66 horn sounding off

Kevin,
Also the horn wire to the horn button blows the horn by giving it a Ground. Any place that wire from the horn button touches metal (ground) it will blow the horn.

Dom