News:

Due to a technical issue, some recently uploaded pictures have been lost. We are investigating why this happened but the issue has been resolved so that future uploads should be safe.  You can also Modify your post (MORE...) and re-upload the pictures in your post.

Main Menu

The Saga of the Neutral Safety Switch and the Blowing Horn

Started by stzomah, September 11, 2017, 01:49:21 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

stzomah

I did a dashboard restoration last year and when I finished, I had a horn issue.  When I put the steering wheel together and turned the wheel, the horn would blow.  I disconnected the relay and planned to pull the steering column and replace the brass ring on the shaft.  There are some great articles on that here!

Yesterday I was putzing around with the hand brake switch and I my eyes focused on the NSS.  I read an article about the spring loaded horn button in the NSS.  I removed the bolt holding it on the column and took a picture of the wiring for reassembly.  I took the assembly to my workshop and disassembled and cleaned the unit.  I saw the prices of NSS’s on Ebay and was extremely careful working with it.

The horn button was in relatively good shape.  There is a good article on remaking the button that i read.  It was still round and had plenty of meat on it.  I cleaned it with steel wool and sprayed everything down with contact cleaner and switch lubricant.

I took my ohm meter and put the probe through the hole in the top of the steering column.  I found that only a section of the ring was making contact with ground.  It appeared that if I adjusted the NSS down toward the gear box a bit, it would miss the grounding section of the ring.

I stuck scotch bright in the hole and spun the wheel to clean the brass ring.  Did not use steel wool fearing metallic dust would be bad!  I remounted the NSS and used the ohm meter to detect grounding (better than the wife yelling at me about the horn blowing!).  I was able to move the NSS down and spin the spring loaded button to find a place where it did not ground out!  Success!

Aligning the NSS to provide backup lights, allow starting in N and P, and not blowing the horn took about an hour!  It works great!  Time will tell if the horn is really fixed.
1956 Series 62 Coupe
owned since 1975