98 Accord: Intermittent Horn

Back in October, someone posted about a horn that was failing
intermittently on his 1998 Accord. I have the same problem, so I wrote
to ask his if he solved it, and he wrote back to say it was diagnosed
by a mechanic as a faulty cable reel, which is the where the horn,
cruise, and airbag signals go through the steering wheel.

It appears that my cable reel is bad, too, so I just thought I'd post
here and let everyone know about it. Maybe this will end up being a
high-failure component in the future. It concerns me, too: if the
airbag deployment signal goes through the same component, how do we
know IT'S not intermittent, too?

I ordered a new assembly from Honda, and I'll reply to this post to
let everyone know if it fixes it, once I get it installed.

(my symptoms, for the record: horn works always with no key in the
ignition. once the car is running, horn works UNLESS steering wheel is
perfectly centered. Once key is removed, horn works again)

wrote:

It concerns me, too: if the
> airbag deployment signal goes through the same component, how do we
> know IT'S not intermittent, too?
>
---------------------------

The SRS system is continually monitoring _all_ of it's devices. Don't
worry, the Honda Engineers are smarter than you give them credit for.

'Curly'

On Jun 30, 12:23 pm, wrote:
<snip>
> (my symptoms, for the record: horn works always with no key in the
> ignition. once the car is running, horn works UNLESS steering wheel is
> perfectly centered. Once key is removed, horn works again)

I installed the new cable reel, and it didn't make any difference at
all. I guess I should have troubleshot better before ordering the
part!

Does anyone know where the horn gets its ground from? I thought it had
to come from the SRS system, since there's no other connection *in* to
the airbag assembly. Tried disconnecting the SRS connector, but the
horn still works.

By the way, I bought the Haynes manual, and the schematic seems to
cover every system *except* the horn. (!!!)

Thanks for any insight...

-Randy

Well, I think I understand now. It looks like the horn switch gets its
ground from the steering wheel, which is grounded via the steering
shaft.

It *looks* like the steering shaft itself is supposed to be grounded
by the ignition switch, which isn't doing its job. The outside, the
steering column, is grounded perfectly, but the steering shaft is
intermittently grounded, depending on the position of the ignition
switch. I've also noticed that just wiggling the key while it's
inserted in the ignition will cause the ground to come and go.

I just wish I could figure out an alternative to replacing the
ignition switch! I can't even get it off right now, since I'm on a
road trip and have limited tools. (no drill) I tried running a
grounding wire to the steering wheel, which works, except for the
safety issue of having a wire attached to a steering wheel, getting
tangled, etc.

Does anyone know of a way I could ground the *inside* of the steering
shaft? The rack end is sealed and lubricated on the inside, right? So
the only way/place I could do it would be the exposed end at the
wheel, or where the ignition locks the shaft, right?

Thanks for any suggestions!

<snip>
> Does anyone know of a way I could ground the *inside* of the steering
> shaft? The rack end is sealed and lubricated on the inside, right? So
> the only way/place I could do it would be the exposed end at the
> wheel, or where the ignition locks the shaft, right?

I found a way to do it, for anyone else that may have the same issue.
Basically, I used an "unused" spot on the cable reel assembly to run
the ground through. I am a bit concerned, however, since it appears
that unused spot was meant to isolate the SRS signals from the cruise
and horn circuits. So far, the air bag hasn't accidentally deployed,
though!

And now, at least the horn works reliably. Hope this information helps
someone else out!