Old VW Horns

[NOVA Airhead]

What is with POs and VW horns? My Thing is the fourth vintage AC VW that I have owned. Every one of them including this car had non-working horns or horns that were not working as installed in the factory. In the case of my Thing the PO had a button on the dash to work the horn with wires running through the luggage compartment.

When I bought the car he pointed this out and I just laughed and said Yes that is interesting.

Last weekend I decided to fix this. The old horn and wires were still there although one of the terminals on the old horn was broken off. Installed the new horn and attached the old wires. Pulled the steering wheel cover. The wire in the column was not connected to the steering wheel cover. Hooked it up - works fine. All of my other cars were a similar situation - bad horn, bad ground, broken wire, etc.

I am sure it took me less time to fix the original set up than the PO spent jury rigging the "fix".

What is so mystifying to people for something that is so incredibly simple?
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Ghia Owner Emeritus

[Semper_Dad]

The horn wasn't working on my Thing when I bought it. PO never attempted to fix it. Once I got it home I popped the cover off found the wire had become disconnected from the cover. 2 minute fix. Easiest circuit to troubleshoot and fix.
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Walküre Restoration Thread: https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=737492

[NOVA Airhead]

Semper_Dad. That is funny.

I know these cars often come with far greater problems and fixing the horn is minor in the scheme of things.

Just ranting, that is all.
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Ghia Owner Emeritus

[Van-go108]

I do need to work on my horn "Thing". It works and all but, that little "Meep, Meep" doesn't do anything for me. It's just a laughable little noise. I need to do an alternator conversion just for the power upgrade to put a proper horn.
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"Okay, so there's 6 beers and 5 of us. You know what this means don't you? 4 of you are going to have to leave."


1973 Thing
1957 Continental Mark II Click to view image

[booch]

[Semper_Dad]

[tallman206]

I think that for the most part, electrical problems bewilder most owners, particularly when it comes to a rotating part (steering column horn wiring - how DO they do that?). Also, the horn being a ground-to-operate circuit seems to fool others. Really rather simple stuff.

I upgraded my horns using the very similar WOLO 306-2T horns.
Almost identical to the large Bosch horns used on many German vehicles.
Scuffed up the front grilles and painted the chrome bling to matte black.
Use a relay if you are going to put in both horns.

Underneath my front bumper - put a second bracket on for the right horn.

[norcalmike]

i too have a button on my dash. never bothered to fix it. i will someday

[vws-microcars4jim]

I have used an auxillary horn button as well, such as this one,

to command air horns. It gives me the choice of the stock beep-beep or a deafening blast. I really like and recommend the air horns.
I truly believe it has helped avoid a few accidents, such as waking up texting drivers wandering into my lane.

[SgtSamy]

[Semper_Dad]

[waxhead]

A mystery indeed. My old Ghia had the same 'button mounted on the dash' fix. If the PO was handy enough to rig that up, you would think he could have figured out how to fix the stock horn button.
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Mike B.

[Rev. Scott]

i have bets as to weather or not the horn works.
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"I haven't seen one of those since I was shootin' at 'em!"

[oasis]

I love it when laws use words like normal, unreasonable, and harsh without actually defining these words.

Unreasonably loud? Someone is about to hit you by unlawfully invading your lane-space, and your horn blows them back where they belong -- seems like a good "reason" to be that loud by action and results to me.
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Now: 2003 New Beetle Turbo S / 1990 Single Cab Transporter / 2014 Tiguan R-Line 4motion / 2013 Tiguan S / 2002 Golf GLS TDI
Past: 1974 Thing Acapulco / 2009 Eos Komfort / 1997 Jetta GT / 2002 Cabrio GLX / 2002 Passat GLS / 1971 Super Beetle / 1993 EuroVan MV Westfalia / 1981 Pickup LX / 1985 Vanagon / 1986 Jetta GLI

[Semper_Dad]

[Captain Spalding]

For those worried about the law - mid-'70's Buicks and Cadillacs had really loud deep stock horns. If used to substitute the Thing's horn, I'm sure they would pass muster.

[74 Cosa]

....as for the horn button, I bet it's a missing ground wire that jumpers the flex coupling on the steering column.

[lukesky]

Hi, all. I was going to rig up a dash button myself because I've got a really bad connection between the 4 contact points under the steering wheel cover and the black wire that comes up through the middle of the steering column. I can tell that the cover itself is in 2 pieces, but I can't figure out how to get them apart without breaking off whatever tabs hold it together.
I get a pretty good sound when I jump the black wire to the contact points on the steering wheel, but when I put the cover back on, I either get nothing or the sound of the AFLAC duck being strangled to death.

Any ideas? (I'll try to post pics later) Thanks.
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You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.
-Gabi

[GI Joe]

[NOVA Airhead]