Intermittent Horn Failure

[ozendyke]

2000 LX Windstar - (no cruise control)
The horn only works occasionally when driving straight ahead, but will work all the time if the steering wheel is turned hard to the left or to the right. Has anyone experienced this and how did you fix the problem? Thanks.

[tripletdaddy]

Hmm, vehicle doesn't have cruise control or it doesn't work? If you have cc, the horn and the cc share the same wiring, so the cc would be giving you troubles too, since you have established that seems to be related to the relative position of the steering wheel. If no cc, then the horn has its own wiring, but it gets it's ground without the cc ground which comes from the cc servo wiring harness. Either way, it sounds like you have a continuity problem through the clock spring inside the steering wheel and column. Unfortunately, I only have a wiring diagram with cc not w/o, so I can't be as specific as I'd like to be, but the horn is most likely fed via a dual conductor clockspring (with cc, it is a three conductor clock spring), which is under the horn pad. Hopefully when removing the horn pad, you will be able to find an adjustment for it or it may just need cleaning. Wish I could be more specific on getting the continuity back as I haven't had to do this myself. Hopefully you are good at figuring things out. Let us know how it turns out and what you had to do tho fix it.

[ozendyke]

Thanks for the suggestions. Now I have to get the horn pad off to see what is what. Do you or anyone have a recomendation for a service manual for the Windstar?

[tripletdaddy]

What I have is a Haynes. I have five of them and one Chilton from fifteen years ago. I found Haynes to be better/easier to use, more pix. etc. The one Chilton's I have I found to be hard to use for a first time mechanic. But they may be different now. I visit Autozone.com for a second opinion on repair procedures. Someone from this forum said they are copies of Chilton's manual. I wouldn't know. If you want to get serious, there are dealer manuals and ALLDATADIY and ALLDATAPRO. I think everyone will be able to find something wrong with most of them, unfortunately. The forums do help when the manuals don't.