Does anybody repair T battery horns?
I have one that I replaced the diaphragm in. I adjusted it as in the Ford manual. The coil is good in it. It moves back and forth as its supposed to.
The problem is that there is no sparking between the points. It all 'looks' good. The points aren't bent up or mangled that you find in these old horns from time to time. Its marked with the Ford script.
I have another horn that I compared the settings and adjustments to in my 24 Coupe. The points arc and buzz as they are suppose to and it works just fine.
I'm scratching my head. Thanks for any advice or the name of someone who is smarter than me that can repair it and get it to work.
You might try contacting John Regan at Fun Projects, he may have some ideas on what to try, or he may accept your horn for repair.
http://www.funprojects.com/
Hi John
From your description it sounds like when the coil is energized it isn't pulling the diaphram in enough to break contact at the points.
Without seeing a picture of the mechanism, it's hard to be specific, but the points must be adjusted (bent) so they're slightly further apart.
If no luck, send us a good pic of the mechanism & especially the points.
Good luck
I hope you put new gaskets on both sides of Diaphragm? They don't vibrate good else while.
There is an ebay vendor who sells lots of horns. I have bought several from him and he has repaired some previously owned horns for me. He does good work.
You can go to his ebay store and send him a private message.
http://www.ebay.com/usr/larryr3156?rt=nc
Bill Randall at the horn shop in New York did mine he does great work
Check the points w/an ohmeter to make sure that they are in fact conducting. Check everything else for continuity.
The battery horn is supposed to draw 5 amps when properly adjusted via a 6V source. You can test honk it and measure its current by picking up battery power at terminal number 1 on your firewall mounted barrier strip. That is the left most connection at the barrier strip as you face it with hood up. The bracket itself must then be connected to a decent ground preferably at the motor assuming the car has a starter that is working which proves out that ground. If you see no current and no sparking at the points then either the points are not closing or the winding is OPEN (broken wire) somewhere. There are 2 types of battery horns basically with either one or two windings. Look at the ends of the windings and see if you can see a broken connection. Sometimes the ground end of the wiring is to a terminal that may be riveted to the horn frame in some way that my have come loose.
I respectfully disagree that the horn needs gaskets to work since the horn works like a "snare drum" with the perimeter tightly held and the center then struck. When the diaphragm is full of holes or rusty it might seem to work better if that diaphragm is loose thus the addition of soft gaskets seems to help but what you want is a higher pitched sound that comes from a very tight perimeter mounted diaphragm. That is then a louder horn. Ford did not use any gaskets on their later battery horns.
I don't repair them since the horn motor/hammer I use has no points in it to stick and the horn motor wiring is designed for that driver although the final horn drive hammer is the same mass as original to thus give the correct same sound. Its a slightly different shape but the exact same mass so the physical movement of the diaphragm is the same as stock but in fact no two horns (including originals) sound exactly the same since the mechanical resonance of the horn is determined by the exact parts used and tuned for maximum sound. The external horn parts like front snout (called the Horn Bel), Horn motor cover, mounting bracket and diaphragm are made to factory drawings except we make the diaphragm out of stainless spring steel rather than regular spring steel because water gets into original horn design rather easily. Rust pin holes are a common problem with original diaphragm. I generally have some of these outer parts left over from my production run of horns and they are available to anyone restoring an original horn.
Hope this helps.