Escort finesse horn problem

I have a 1998 escort finesse . The horn is operated from the pad in the middle of the steering wheel. The pad also has an airbag in it. The horn started to come on by itself while I was driving. Not a steady "blast " of the horn, but short blasts as if there was just a faint contact in the horn circuit. When this happened I could bash the pad on the steering wheel to stop it .

I took it to an auto electritian who said he couldn`t see anything wrong with it . He said he looked inside the pad and also all the way down to the actual horn , although he could not get the horn to come on by itself while he was driving it round the yard. So he left it unsolved As I drove it away I noticed that now he had re-fitted the steering wheel pad it was much more sensitive than before, needing just the slightest press to sound the horn. As the pad was more sensitive , when the horn started sounding again on its own , it was a much steadier , stronger "blast".

I called another auto electritian who said he would have a look , but he needed to see the fault & to call him when the fault was much worse. I can`t drive round like this (with my horn blasting out intermitantly !!) for weeks till the horn is almost always on. I have taken the fuse out for now & I`m now without the horn completely.

Am I wrong in thinking that ,surely , if the problem was made worse when the 1st auto electritian made the pad more sensitive .... then can`t the problem be solved by reducing the sensitivity of the pad somehow?? The 2nd electritian suggested rewiring the horn from the pad to another switch somewhere else (big job ?? I don`t know ) but this solution seemed a bit extreme to me.

Reply to
tomm
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The horn switch isn't part of the pad, as it's built into the stalks. You could try removing the stalks, and provided the pad springs back freely, then the fault most likely lies in the adjustment of the switches. IIRC there is a slight amount of adjustment, but they can also be put on wrongly, so the horn sounds all the time.

Reply to
Moray Cuthill

This article may prove useful.

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last sentence reads, ".... a horn that intermittently blows on its owngenerally is caused by a bad clock spring that shorts out to groundrandomly." The drawings help. Note the warning about dismantlingthe wheel pad with integral airbag.

Reply to
Lin Chung

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