I've seen a lot of horn, cruise, clockspring posts on this site, but none solve my problem. I recently got my 98 F150 back after two years with my grandson 200 miles away. He got an upgrade! A cruise button was broken and the horn wasn't working. His dad took it to a mechanic who cut a blue wire under the dash and inserted a button that honked the horn to get it inspected.

When I got it back I replaced the cruise button with one from a salvage yard and put in a new clockspring, which replaced the wire that was cut to add the button. When I reconnected the battery after reassembling the horn came on.

Crawling under the truck I could see that the original horns were gone and a new one was there. A short wire on the horn that looks like it was intended to be a ground was connected to one of the two connections on the horn. The other connection was connected to one of the two wires coming from the truck. I removed the short grouding wire thinking that might be the problem. Now, the horn won't work at all. I've also grounded the short wire on the horn to the truck and nothing happens.

If I reconnect the short grounding wire to the horn connection I can short out the red connector in the steering wheel that would go to the air bag and am able to honk the horn that way. So I'm getting juice that way. I've checked the fuses and they are all good. I'm obviously missing something. Is there something else the mechanic could have done that needs to be reversed that I have not found?

Thanks for any help. I have found answers on this site in the past without joining, but this issue has been a puzzle.

 

Talked to the mechanic who added the button fix to the no horn problem and he said all he did was cut the blue clock spring wire and add a button. So, this made me think the problem was with the horn part of the air bag. I took the air bag off of an F250 I have and the horn honked when shorting out the two connections in the red connector. I've decided that the air bag must be the problem it was probably acting up and eventually shorted out over time. I will be returning to the salvage yard this week hoping to find a used air bag to fix the problem.

 

You won't believe how easy & simple to fix this problem.

Just remove the Bolt with small ground wire @ the firewall behind the battery. Remove all the Green Corrosion on bolt, wire terminal & firewall using a wire brush and install it back. Tell me if it works or not...

The pump that squirts water to your windshield is also not working?

 

WOLvez, you don't think the problem is in the air bag? Everything seems to work up to that point. I can emulate pushing the pad on the bag by shorting the connector at the steering wheel with a short wire.


the washer pump is working fine.

 

I'm 99.9% SURE the problem is a Bad Ground Wire.

I'm referring to the ground wire bolted @ the firewall. That is the ground wire goes to the shorting connector on the horn @ the airbag. Just clean that wire first before going to the junkyard.

Look @ the picture below. Just clean both bolted ground wire with green corrosion.

 

wOLvez, I cleaned the contacts but that didn't work. Stopped by a junk yard on the way home yesterday and got a used airbag, installed it and now it is all working. Thanks for your help.