VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 Horn wiring in steering column

Hi All,

I need some help with horn wiring on a 41 Deluxe Coupe. The wire that comes out of the steering column under the hood needs replacing. Can you provide any hints on how to do this?? Please help.

Rshorty in CT

Great post. I'm in that boat too! Hope someone gives a step by step. One person said the column was hard to remove,almost touching the headliner. Gheeez I can see the broken wire in the housing . Photos please.

There is a bushing in the top of the steering column that the wire passes thru to the contact in the horn button. to replace the entire wire the steering wheel has to be pulled and the bushing removed and a new bushing with the wire passing thru replaced. I tied a long piece of wire to the wire on the old bushing after I cut the wire from the bushing and used the extra piece of wire to fish the new wire down and out the steering column when I installed the new bushing, as per the instructions. The bushing on my 51 was flush with the top of the steering column tube, I was lucky and pryed the bushing out of the column very carefully, with a sharp pointed packing pick. I also had a spare column to practice on.

This is a very challenging repair! This is the reason so many of us have horn buttons mounted somewhere under the dash by the steering column. One thing this will require is a lot of patience. First, don't take anything apart without purchasing the parts. I think Chevy of the 40's calls the necessary part a Bearing (mast jacket). You will see it in the catalog with the horn parts and it looks like the picture for the 49-54 part. In reality it is a bearing with a wire soldered to it that goes inside the mast for the steering column and out a small hole in the mast a few inches below the transmission shift linkage. Besides this piece you will need the grommet that protects the wire as it comes out the hole in the mast below the transmission shift linkage. You can get a good grommet from a Lowes store or a good hardware.

There are at least three ways to try this repair each requires the removal of the steering wheel:

1) Take the steering wheel off, pull off the old bearing from around the shaft to the steering box and hope for divine intervention as you fish the new wire on the new bearing down the mast and out the hole in the mast for the horn wire.

2) Loosen everything attached to the steering mast and pull the mast into the car as far as the hole for the horn wire and fish the new bearing wire out of the horn hole in the mast.

3) Take off the steering box with its shaft and then loosen all the mast clamps and take off all the transmission shift linkage and remove the entire mast. I chose this way so I could rebuild my steering box and repaint my mast and transmission linkage. If you choose this way it is very easy to fish the wire through the mast and fish it out the horn hole. The second and last ways do require taking precise measurements of where the linkages for the transmission are positioned on the mast. You can imagine your shifting problems if things are just a little off on where the linkage clamp is located?

You do not want the wire to ever come in contact with the steering shaft or it will eventually wear out so the horn wire hole on the mast should face down ???

These are not very detailed directions. I would be glad to offer more detail if it is needed. In know way do I want to have anyone assume either the ease or difficulty of this repair. One man's nightmare is another man's piece of cake???

Good luck, Mike

P.s. Someday I hope to get the parts so I can use the horn on my steering wheel???

I think I'll leave mine on the dash. grin

His would be a little easier since he has a floor shift not a colum shift