I’m wondering how I can make the horn work on my 1952 mercury without operating it with the horn ring on the steering wheel. This did work until I removed the steering wheel several years ago to change the turn signal switch it disturbed something so that when I could turn the wheel the horn would sound when just turning the wheel.
I remember unhooking the horn wire from the wiring block where the turn signal wires are connected, the the mechanic must have cut that wire off when he installed an aftermarket turn signal switch for me a few years ago.
Is it possible to connect the horn wire to a simple button? Does the horn work by grounding the circuit to make the horn sound?
I have tried to find a wiring diagram for this circuit, but have been unsuccessful.
I looked at your profile and apparently you have had this vehicle since 2008 or longer. I would have thought that by now you would have found a club or at least other people who are interested in vehicles like yours. People who like vintage cars usually can’t wait to share what they know about them. Have you searched the web for old Ford and Mercury forums.
As for the horn you could just run a wire from the battery terminals with an inline button to make it work.
Well I’ll try. If you take the horn button off there should be a wire that is or was or should be attached to it. Pushing the horn button then grounds that horn ring to the the metal on the steering wheel. If the horn is going off when turning, somehow the two are coming together. I had that on my Morris and it was just a matter of a little black tape. At any rate if you can identify the right wire going to the horn ring and tap into it with another wire, you should be able to just ground the switch wherever you want it and run that wire to it. Rather than doing all that though, I’d just fix what’s wrong with the horn. Little Dearborn in MPLS has lots of parts or French Lake Auto Parts by Annandale specializes in old junked cars and has lots of old parts.
I installed such a button on my 1950 Chevrolet pickup. I think I bought the button in the auto parts section of a farm store. It clamped to the steering column. One lead went to the horn relay and the other lead went to a ground. Pushing the button completed the circuit through the coil of the relay which closed the contacts and sounded the horn. This was a common repair on vehicles of that vintage. If you care about your vehicle looking stock as I would if I owned a 1952 Mercury, then pull the steering wheel and fix it properly. My truck was a $115 work truck, so I didn’t care about looks.