Hello I’m Sam with JBugs.com
In our last video, we finished up wiring a 1966 Beetle
and by the end had everything in the car working with the exception of the horn.
The horn wiring or more specifically grounding
can cause the horn to either turn no as soon as the key is turned on
or, as in the case with this car, not turn on at all.
The horn wiring and grounding are the same from 1960 through 1967
so this video is applicable for any of those year beetles.
We'll back up the installation a bit to show the horn circuit
and with the horn temporarily hooked up, we can explain the horn wiring and how it works.
When the key is on power is sent to the horn from the ignition terminal at the fuse box
so whenever the key is on, the horn has power.
The double black/red and black/yellow wire goes through the front left harness and runs down to the horn.
When you press the horn button you complete the ground, turning the horn on.
The entire steering column and the shaft are rubber mounted and isolated from the car.
There's a rubber steering coupler at the steering box, isolating the shaft
and a rubber grommet at the firewall, along with the rubber grommet at the dash,
keeping the column itself isolated.
If either the column or the shaft is grounding out, as soon as you turn on your key,
the horn would begin to honk.
The ground begins at the steering box.
The steering column wire attaches to one of the bolts that hold the steering coupler to the steering box.
The ground wire travels up the steering shaft
and when the horn button is pressed
the wire grounds out the steering horn ring to the steering wheel which is attached to the steering shaft.
The steering shaft rides on a steel bearing that transmits the ground to the column tube
and from there to the wire at the bottom of the column.
That wire connects to the horn and the horn begins to honk.
Hopefully, this will help you track down the problem if your horn doesn't work
and now we can get to the problem in our own system.
After checking for power at the horn
and then grounding it out to make sure the horn works
we know that the problem isn't our ground connection.
We'll go back to the starting point of the ground,
the steering box connection,
and work our way up to the horn to see where the problem is.
With a continuity tester, we can hear an audible beep that tells us the wiring connection
at the steering box and wire is good.
We check continuity of the wire that runs through the steering column and it’s good.
We ground out the wire to the steering wheel and the steering shaft itself
and still nothing happens at our horn.
So we know the problem must be in between the steering shaft
and the metal steering column tube.
In other words, the bearing that the shaft rides is not transmitting the ground
between the shaft and the column.
We pull the steering wheel, turn signal switch, and column
and we can see the steering shaft has been painted.
It is sanded down to the bare metal.
While we are at it, we sand down the bearing race on the column
and then reassemble the steering column.
We reattach the wiring at the bottom of the steering column
and then with the key on we ground out the horn button wire to the steering shaft
and can see sparks and hear the horn working.
Everything on the steering column can be reinstalled.
We press the horn ring, the horn honks,
so we snap on the horn button.
With that, all the wiring on thins 1966 Beetle is complete.
Hopefully, this video, along with our others,
will give you the confidence to work on your wiring or rewire your VW.
Most Beetle wiring is similar
and getting familiar with your VWs electrical system will help you diagnose and fix any electrical problems that come up later down the road.
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and say hello in the comments below and of course when you need parts for your vintage Volkswagen
head over to JBugs.com