Today I Blew Apart and Fixed an Inoperable Horn. It Was Easy.
A friend of mine has a 1981 Chevy short bed step side pickup. He bought it new, but it hasn’t run in about 15 years. We have been working on it for about a year to get it running and driving again. To do so, we have taken a break from restoring his 56 Studebaker Powerhawk. We went through the engine and have rebuilt/replaced pretty much everything. A few days ago, we tested the horns, and one did not work plus the power-in tab was broken off (picture 4). So, I blew it completely apart by drilling out all the rivets, and I found that, 1) the wire going from the power-in tab had separated from the electromagnet (picture 3); 2) there was a set of points that allow the magnet to pulse, and they were corroded, and; 3) it was just dirty and rusty inside. So I cleaned it up on the inside by lightly blasting in in my blasting cabinet, fixed the loose wire with an old male terminal spade and a nut/bolt/washer combo (pictures 5 and 6), and cleaned up the corroded points. Then I made a new gasket and put it back together with 8-32 bolts and nuts. It worked great. All I have to do now is paint it with some Krylon Satin Black. If you want to, you can cut off the threads that are exposed above the nots and grind on them a bit to make them look more like rivets. It was a chevy horn, but I bet they are all pretty much the same.
A friend of mine has a 1981 Chevy short bed step side pickup. He bought it new, but it hasn’t run in about 15 years. We have been working on it for about a year to get it running and driving again. To do so, we have taken a break from restoring his 56 Studebaker Powerhawk. We went through the engine and have rebuilt/replaced pretty much everything. A few days ago, we tested the horns, and one did not work plus the power-in tab was broken off (picture 4). So, I blew it completely apart by drilling out all the rivets, and I found that, 1) the wire going from the power-in tab had separated from the electromagnet (picture 3); 2) there was a set of points that allow the magnet to pulse, and they were corroded, and; 3) it was just dirty and rusty inside. So I cleaned it up on the inside by lightly blasting in in my blasting cabinet, fixed the loose wire with an old male terminal spade and a nut/bolt/washer combo (pictures 5 and 6), and cleaned up the corroded points. Then I made a new gasket and put it back together with 8-32 bolts and nuts. It worked great. All I have to do now is paint it with some Krylon Satin Black. If you want to, you can cut off the threads that are exposed above the nots and grind on them a bit to make them look more like rivets. It was a chevy horn, but I bet they are all pretty much the same.