Deluxe steering wheel horn pad

[French demon]

Hello guys

I am restoring a 71 Deluxe steering wheel, but I have a question about the 3 horns buttons.
How do they work?
Between the rubber button and the white nylon frame, there are two metallic blades (+/- polarized) separated by four little red rubber buffers (?).

I understand that the two blades have to be in contact to ground the horn, but it doesn't work, the red buffers prevent the blades from touching each other

In addition, there is a kind of plastic tape on one side of each blade (on the same side as the red buffers).
I really do not understand how it works...

I tested with an ohmmeter, but none of the three pads work

Thank you in advance
François

 

[French demon]

I found a thread about this problem on FBBO :
Repairing/Restoring 3 -Spoke Steering Wheel Horn Switch - With Pics!

The guilty are the foam tapes on the blades.
They are totally disintegrated by age.


The FBBO member speaks about "4 rubber contacts impregnated with a conductor, and when compressed they complete the circuit, and not compressed, no conducting occurs.". I do not understand how rubber can be conductor.

So, I will to try to simplify the system, using only two red rubber buffers and pushing/bending the blade (between these rubber buffers) onto the other blade to create continuity and to horn.

Wait and see

 

[French demon]

It's done.

Blades cleaning


I sticked only two rubber buffers, instead of four.


This way, the blades can easily be put in contact


After reassembly when I push on the rubber pad, the continuity is still ok.


Complete reassembly. Now I'm waiting for a central pad purchased on ebay.

 

[French demon]

The central pad is arrived from States.


Homemade tri-pointed fake wood grain


It seems to be an easy job. It's definitely NOT an easy job to obtain a correct result

 

[French demon]

Before :

After :