88 TII here. To clarify a bit, when pushing my steering wheel, the horn will not work. When the alarm goes off, the horn will sound. So after reading all about the relay to the horn, I figured if it WAS indeed the relay, then the horn wouldn't work with the alarm. That's just a guess, but it would make sense to me. Now, if it ISN'T the relay, then that would lead me to believe it's the contacts in the steering wheel.

Does that sound like a sound hypothesis?

 

Mine is kind of the same way. My horn wouldn't work, and i got really frustrated so i punched the wheel, then the horn worked, hehe. I guess it's just the button needs to be snapped into place, it has an old part so it's bound to get worn down or something.

 

Take the center piece off of your steering wheel (I think it is 3 bolts on the back side of the cover). Inspect the horn contact, the part that touches the ring when you press the horn button. Make sure this is clean and long enough to do the job. Verify the electrical spade plug is in good shape.

Also you can manually ground the horn by jumping the frame of the center section of the horn button to the ring on the steering column. It should honk.

Josh

 

what i would do is.

1 check if the relay inside the CPU clicks when you push on the horn swith.
no = check the switch on the steering wheel or cables going to it the harness is the squared one with 4 green cables make sure its not loose. noting wrong check the relay on the CPU is the one on the Upper left when you open it.
Yes = remove the harness from the CPU, check for continuity on the CPU for the voltage controled by the relay which which are the 1st and the 3rd pins from left to right on the top row on the CPU. ( must be pushing the horn to get continuity).

continuity= get a jumper cable from the battery and go to the harness you pulled from the cpu and look for a green cable with an orange line if not mistaken. power it and horn should beep if not let me know for more advice.

no continuity= need a new relay. I have one still laying arround in case you end up needing one.

good luck

 

Sweet, sounds good. What's funny about my steering wheel, it looks like the S5 steering wheel *I guess the 88TII's came with the s5 steering wheel? This one http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/9682/img0128wr5.jpg* had been...I guess an easy way to explain it is "crumpled". Like you took a piece of paper, waded it together, then tried to flatten it out. I wonder if somebody has already tried this out, but to no avail. Oh well, I'll look into this weekend when I can actually work on the car when it's daylight out. Lets hope it's something simple to fix...

 

or possibly someone just updated it before you owned the car? The column surround is still S4 not S5.

 

True, but the only time I really ever see that steering wheel *I am probably wrong though* is in an S5. So I figured it was the S5 steering wheel, but that doesn't mean they could have included it in with the 88 TIIs. OR somebody swapped it in, and just screwed up while doing it, thus screwing up the horn.

 

I understand your point, but it's unlikely (probably impossible) a rogue part from the next years model would have been laying around on the assembly line.

It is a S5 steering wheel though.

 

Oh, I see where we have the miscommunication. I'm not saying mine was just lucky enough to get an S5 wheel on the line. I didn't know if the 88 TIIs, like with a few other things, had something different then it's N/A counterpart. So, I was thinking maybe the turbos had that steering wheel as a stock part. But from what you're saying, I'm incorrect in thinking that, and only the S5's have that steering wheel. So that answers the question I've been thinking for a while now, is how that wheel came to lookin' like that. Heh.

 

OK, so I took the center piece of my steering wheel off, and tried to find out of something wasn't hooked up or anything for my horn, but everything looks OK from my point of view. The "button" piece was making the connections, but I tried my best to clean them off...still nothing. I tried to clean the connectors that are on the steering wheel, and that didn't work either. I'm HOPING it's not the relay, but would the alarm part that runs the horn be going through a different relay then the steering wheel horn? Anyway, I took a few pictures, so does anybody see anything completely wrong, here?

 

Just go to the CPU. With a piece of wire bare on each end, insert one end in the back of the CPU plug where the green/orange wire is. Put the other end of the wire to a known ground. The horn should honk. IF it did, then your problem is with the steering wheel area, not the relay or CPU.

If it does not honk, then it's most likely the cold solder joints at the CPU's jack that the plug connects to. Takes five minutes to check out. Simple as that.

 

I get so worried digging in my car into something important like the CPU :P *crosses fingers and hope I don't break anything*

 

like i told you on a previous post. i have an extra relay from a donor board. shoot me a PM if you end up needing it.

 

The green/orange wire is a ground wire. The ground is put on that wire by pusing a button on the steering wheel. If you apply a ground to the green/orange wire in the CPU plug, you are doing nothing more than what happens if you push the button on the steering wheel.

If the horn works, then the problem is from the green/orange wire back towards the steeing wheel. If the horn does NOT honk, the problem lies on the CPU side of things and the problem is not towards the steeing wheel.

The solder joints on the CPUs jack are a common problem, much like the solder joints on the jack of the Warning light cluster.

 

Thanks Polito. I'll hit you up on that if I need it.

And HAILERS, thanks for all the help, man. Hopefully I can resolve this soon. It's still 30 degrees out, so I'll wait until it gets a little warmer out today before I go sprawling out around my car and ground :P

 

Well, checked the fuse while I was on the floor, and it's good. Went to take out the CPU, and I couldn't get that nut unscrewed! I really wish I had a decent set of tools, not the junk I'm using now. After 5-10 minutes of trying to get it undone, I gave up. I'll have to go find me another 10mm, and get a socket, not use that darned wrench.