A few little pieces fell out from under the horn pad yesterday, causing the horn to sound constantly. I had to pull the fuse to continue our trip.

Today, I pulled off the horn button and matched up the little pieces that fell off. There are 3 screws with washers that go through a black plastic spacer. One of the screw assemblies had fallen out. I also found a black rubber O-ring on the floor, and when I removed the contact plate that these screws go through, an old, fragile thinner O-ring fell out.

Any suggestions on how/where to mount the O-rings would be greatly appreciated.

They used a ground circuit to turn on the horn relay. Make sure you look in there well and clear out all the metal pieces, then make sure that the relay wire isn't touching gounded metal.

You should disconnect the the wiring under the steering column, then use a tester to make sure the horn wire isn't going to ground.

After what you said, from being ON so long, the relay may have welded itself in the ON position. Check the relay to make sure the contacts are open when the coil is OFF.

We were able to stop the honking by pushing the horn pad's bottom edge (bottom as it sits on the steering wheel; the edge that is at 6 oclock when you are sitting in the drivers seat looking at the wheel), and can honk the horn by either lifting the bottom edge or push the top edge. The horn was never allowed to go on uncontrollably, but the only way to stop it was to manually push down on that lower edge & hold it there until we could safely pull over & remove the fuse.

The contact plate was sagging towards the lower edge, like something that holds it parallel to the steering wheel fell out. Right now it's all off the steering wheel.

I could say something about being horney but I wont sounds like you have it covered

Beandip, hubby LOVED your post!

As an epilog of sorts... just in case anyone else experiences this problem. Upon further examination, hubby discovered that one of the little metal tabs on the steering wheel that hold the plastic spacer in place was pretty badly chipped. I remember when going through the PO's service records reading one about a problem he was having with the horn button. Apparantly the repair entailed slipping a thick rubber O-ring around the outside of the affected pair of tabs in order to compensate for the broken tab.

We slipped the O-ring back over the tabs, and the horn works fine again. Apparantly, the screw holding the affected spacer jiggled loose during our trip. As long as the screw is tight, I think we'll be OK. Still, it's not a solution I'm happy with, so I'm on the lookout for a '74 steering wheel.

It looks like a proper replacement of the affected part(s) is in order, unless you want to be surprised again down ther road somewhere. I'm a little surprised that you didn't mention some idiot that lost his cool because he didn't care for the horn blaring. You know- road rage (both 4-letter words)!

Good luck.

Tom,

I'm sure the guy (going about 5 mph below the speed limit) we were trying to pass when the horn went off thought we were idiots! I was laughing so hard I almost cried.