Horn Button Conundrum

Suicune

New Member
Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster.

Installed a new aftermarket steering wheel yesterday on my lancer coupe 1.5, and ive got an issue, where the supplied horn button doesnt work, but the one that came with the saas boss kit does.

The saas horn button just has 2 clips, onto which the boss kit leads clip on to. Works as per normal.

The wheel horn button also has 2 clips, but has this metal clip hanging out too, see attached pic.
20180208_093023.jpg

When leads are hooked onto clips, no sound. When you clip either pos/neg lead to one clip, and touch the other lead to that metal piece, the horn continously sounds.

Any ideas?
 
Simple enough problem to fix, but very hard to explain if you are not the one there fixing it i guess.
Just use the SAAS horn button, you connected it up if its working ok wasn't it, you could always cheat and use a bit of silicon on it, then center it, whack on masking tape and let it dry overnight if its a loose fit, or worse case this horn button doesn't it fit at all?

Obviously when you connect the two wires from boss kit together or connect to saas cap connections, you said horn works as normal, is that right?

You will find that in the wheel horn button pictured, the spring wire protruding can have two up to 2 functions, sometimes
  • It is used to help hold the steering wheel horn button in place when it is not such a great fit and
  • It can also be wired to act as a extra/main earth ground point as well, which can cause problems sometimes
The only way to fully check how it is wired is to pop the side lock tabs on the steering wheel horn button and peek inside to see how it is set up or use multi meter, if you don't have test meters then try below method.

I don't have a CE wiring diagram so it depends on if the horn runs thru earth switch relay or how it is switched? You said the two wires coming from boss kit when connected together, or plugged in SAAS button will sound horn, correct?
Just use your steering wheel lock down nut as a test point ( make sure its tight) and just connect one of the wires at a time to the the center nut and see which, if any sounds the horn, when you find that wire connect it to center terminal of your horn button, dont insert it into wheel yet (This is where coloured alligator test clips/ multi-meters come in handy) if you have the clips connect one to spring clip wire and then run another from same spring clip wire to the steering nut, test button again, if nothing happens unclip test clip from spring wire, connect test lead to other terminal i'm sure its just a matter of finding trigger wire and connecting one or both wires to correct terminal.

Depends on how the horn is set up, most neg some are pos switching relay, i remember way back about 30 years ago i think i removed the same spring clip from a horn button in order to get the horn to work back then, its too far back cant remember details or why i did though??, then i just did the above silicon/masking tape trick and all was good again.

Some of the cheaper caps require lots more pressure while pushing button to get them to work as well, just to make life more interesting
 
quite a simple reason. your boss will be metal, the spring edge acts as 1 contact. you only need to connect the active wire (from the metal ring on base of boss) to the middle terminal. not technical.
 
Hi guys, long time lurker, first time poster.

Installed a new aftermarket steering wheel yesterday on my lancer coupe 1.5, and ive got an issue, where the supplied horn button doesnt work, but the one that came with the saas boss kit does.

The saas horn button just has 2 clips, onto which the boss kit leads clip on to. Works as per normal.

The wheel horn button also has 2 clips, but has this metal clip hanging out too, see attached pic.
View attachment 6203

When leads are hooked onto clips, no sound. When you clip either pos/neg lead to one clip, and touch the other lead to that metal piece, the horn continously sounds.

Any ideas?


Both of the previous answers are incorrect.

This particular horn is meant to function so that either the outer spade connector, or the black wire clip, can be used as ground.

The issue is that the horn hasn't been assembled properly in the factory, resulting in the black wire clip not making contact with the outer spade connector's mounting post.

The fix is quite easy. Use a flat head screwdriver to release the 3 clips which releases the button from the housing. Once it's open you will see some guiding posts where the circular spring wire should sit inside. If it's correctly seated in the posts, the black wire will sit flush in contact with the mounting post of the outer spade connector.

Once fixed, the outer spade connector now functions correctly instead of being connected to nothing.

Unrelated to this, I also found the silver protecting ring which SAAS provides does not fit into the hole in the steering wheel. Even after hammering and using pliers to try and shrink its diameter, it still would not fit.

Additionally, the horn button is poorly designed in that its diameter is too wide such that the fascia bolts rub against them which scuffs the plastic when screwing them in. (edit: possibly this could be avoided by connecting the horn button after the wheel is already bolted in).

Finally, I am very disappointed with the lubricant that their Chinese manufacturer is spraying onto these wheels as even after multiple soap downs with dish detergent, lubricant is still rubbing off on my hands.
 
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