Horn not working, help

Jas

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All,

Any advice on helping me trouble shoot my horn? Put her away last fall and it worked fine. Tried it just before launch yesterday and no go.

Just launched this morning and wouldn’t you know it, got boarded by the Coasties. No problem, had my whistle to get me by, but definitely want to have my horn working again. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Regards,
Ted
 

seasick

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It's either electrical or the horn vibrator contacts are corroded or stuck.
If you can get to the wires that connect to the horn, check for voltage when the switch is pressed. You need to verify both supply and ground. Check the connectors also if you can get to them.
If the electrical is good, try wacking the hoen firmly with a hammer ( don't smash it, just wack it:) ) while holding down the switch. This requires really long arms or two people.
 

RBallou

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Have you tried taking off the horn cap and adjusting the set screw while pressing the horn button? This worked for me when the horn would no longer sound.
 

dduflo

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I just finished fixing mine. Last year tapping it with a screwdriver handle worked, not so this spring. I took the cover off and dismantled the horn, 5 screws. Note that two of the screws are slightly longer and are used to hold the horn to the bracket. The whole thing easly comes apart so be careful cause you are going to have a hand full of gaskets, etc. When I put it back togeather I used a VERY small amount of rubber cement to hold everything togeather. You will notice a set of contacts that I cleaned with a small narrow piece of 220 grit sandpaper and then sprayed with CRC Electrical cleaner. Works great. Good luck.
 

CJBROWN

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The rocker switches and circuit resets are known to fail. Check there to make sure you have power. Especially the circuit breaker. Cheap to replace, easy to get at any marine supply.

The horns are a bit fussy. If they get water in them they can stick. Good instruction here on tinkering with them to get them going again. Failing that, just buy a new one, they're also cheap.
 

Jas

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All,

Thanks for the good insight. Haven't had the chance to get to the boat to trouble shoot this, but will let you know. Thanks.

Ted
 

leek

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I am currently struggling with this. How do you defeat the breaker?
 

grady23

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Which would you rather do? Spend 2-3 hours fixing the horn or 2 extra hours fishing. I just replaced mine and got on with my day.
 

Ken Johnson

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Here's some good advice about preventing horn problems. Use a lot of silicone on the exterior of the horn's openings and wiring areas. It looks a bit unsightly with all the excess, but if you cover as much of the openings as possible, your horn will last for years...
 

Gary M

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The horn on my Sailfish and now Marlin usually craps out every 12-18 months. I usually get it replaced when it goes in the boat yard, but I finally gave up and bought a small (and LOUDER) hand-held horn. When I go to sell, I'll get it fixed/replaced one last time......... The cheap horn is one of the chintzy things that Grady has done..... :bang
 

BobP

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As was noted, it's not always a bad horn, but I'd say if you got 5 - 10 yrs out of it in satwater you did good.

Nonetheless, connect a digital VM to the horn wires where they connect to the ships wiring, you have to pull back monkey fur or whatever is over wires to gain access to connections near horn, they are close enough.

And you can use a 10 buck multimeter from Sears on sale in their Sunday fliers, don't need several hundred buck Flukes.

Keep battery charger or motor off, position meter where you can read digits, keep horn connected as before, so meter is in parallel with horn. Now hit horn button, hopefully it is not working right at that time, so I'd connect the VM to keep it up just in case have to do it over time.

Now read screen while pressing sw, what does it read?

A horn is substantial power but if the source is at 12 volt nominal with charger & motor off, voltage will stay above 11 V. If voltage drops too much you have a bad wiring joint / lug, sw, or very bad horn, not likely horn, so disconnect horn and connect a 12V flood lite or any motor or several car brake lite bulbs / headlamp, whatever you have and do the same, if the voltage stays up then it is not a bad horn and in the wiring back. I found a partially severed crimp lug at the sw where voltage dropped to 6 or 8 volts as I recall

So a big voltage drop was not allowing the horn enough voltage, but normal voltage with a very light load would occur, that's why a test load needs to be substantial.

I touched the lug and it was actually very warm, the fracture occurred because of vibration over time and the neck on the crimp terminal cracked nearly clear off. Horn was intermiitant, then new horn didn't work at all. WTF?

So there it was, new horn went in anyway.

If the voltage reads same or similar to source voltage (battery terminals at stern) with horn connected, get a new horn or fix yours.