dessertrat
Member
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- Location
- Eagle Mountain, UT
I just went through this and thought I'd share for posterity to help some future schmuck like myself save some frustration and time.
My deuce came with a cracked steering wheel and a missing horn button. I think it may have experienced some blunt force trauma at some point. I found a prior owner had unplugged the horn wire at the base of the steering box, and when I plugged it back in, it periodically honked on its own while driving, especially when turning, and often at embarrassing times, because while the wire was in perfect condition, the insulator washer type thing that keeps the wire contact from touching ground around it was busted and hanging on for dear life. Unplugging it made sense.
To remedy this, I got a NOS button kit from eBay and deciphered from TM 9-2320-209-20-3-1 Section VII (pages 7-190 through 7-196) which components were what. Some of the components don't seem illustrated to scale, which confused me when trying to put the whole assemblage together, but I figured it out. If you have existing components in their original positions for reference, which I did not, it would probably be easier to decipher.
Now, here's where the fun starts. I decided to use fishing line as a safety wire, tying it to the steering gearbox end and pulling the horn wire up through the steering wheel. It worked fine. I got the components assembled onto the horn as the manual instructed and pulled the fishing line from the bottom of the steering box, pulling the horn wire back down. Pretty soon I found the horn wire seemed to be snagging on something. I tried pulling it out and back in a bunch of times, spinning it around, nothing. My guess is there must be a narrow opening with a lip somewhere, probably where the shaft enters the gearbox, and my fishing line is pulling the plug end of the wire at an angle so that it always traps itself against that lip.
I tried re-tying the string such that it would pull it straighter, but no luck, same problem. Then I tried using a thin gauge of wire I had sitting around-- probably 22 gauge. Tied it to the gearbox end of the fishing line and pulled it up through the steering column. Cut the fishing line off and wrapped the wire around the plug end of the horn wire. Pulled it through, and before I knew it, the wire came out the gearbox without the horn wire attached. How on earth was I supposed to get the horn wire down now?!
Then it came to me. I grabbed my trusty old fiberglass fish sticks-- flexible but firm, narrow rods traditionally used for fishing ethernet and fiber cables through walls and ceilings-- and tried shoving them down the steering column. They were just the right size to fit past the hole in the contact washer in the horn button assembly. A millimeter larger, and it wouldn't have fit through. I put down four sticks, and then it stopped. My heart dropped. I figured it was getting stuck in the same place as the horn wire was. I checked the steering box, and lo and behold, there was the yellow line sticking out the end! It had simply gotten stuck on the frame in front of the box.
On the steering wheel end, I tried different ways to connect the horn wire plug end to the end of the fish sticks: tape, fishing line, thin wire. None of them worked. Some made the wire too big to fit through the contact washer. All failed while being pulled through. Then in desperation I tried shoving the plug end of the horn wire into the female screw end of one of the sticks (each stick has a male screw and female screw end so they can be assembled together to make as long or as short of a rod as you need). To my surprise, it fit perfectly. The female screw threads grab on to it just enough that you can screw it in and it holds tight. It probably scrapes the connector a little, but in my position, I couldn't care less.
I went back to the gearbox end and pulled the rods through. The rod screw ends I believe were getting caught slightly on whatever lip caused all this trouble to begin with, but with a bit of jiggling and bending the rods, they got past it easily. After less than a minute, I had the horn wire out the gearbox end and secured at the steering wheel end (see pix 3 - 4).
I am not a gearhead, not by a long shot, but one of the skills I picked up in the IT world running cables through walls came in handy in this world.
For those who want to reproduce this solution or have this tool on hand just in case, I used 3/16 inch rods. Specifically this product (HFT 33' Electric Fiberglass Wire Pull Rods Fish Tape, though the storage case that came with it says the brand is CEN-TECH, item 65236). I expect any 3/16 inch rod set from any manufacturer would do. I got it ten years ago, and it's been used on and off for a lot of projects through the years. Today it absolutely earned its keep, well worth the money even if I had only used it today. There are much better brands out there, but this is what I had handy, and hey, I can't complain about this one's performance.
Oh, also when installing the big rubber button at the end (this was an old style button kit with the large round rubber button rather than the self-contained button that plugs in to the horn wire), I found it easier to pull the outside part of the rubber back, forcing the center forward, sort of like those old rubber popper toys we had in the 90s that you'd turn inside out and they'd snap and jump into the air. This extrudes the boss (the protrusion in the middle of the inside of the button that's meant to be shoved into the plastic piece you've already installed to the wheel and hold the rubber piece on) and makes it waaaaay easier to shove it in. Don't be like I was at first and try to brute force it.
My deuce came with a cracked steering wheel and a missing horn button. I think it may have experienced some blunt force trauma at some point. I found a prior owner had unplugged the horn wire at the base of the steering box, and when I plugged it back in, it periodically honked on its own while driving, especially when turning, and often at embarrassing times, because while the wire was in perfect condition, the insulator washer type thing that keeps the wire contact from touching ground around it was busted and hanging on for dear life. Unplugging it made sense.
To remedy this, I got a NOS button kit from eBay and deciphered from TM 9-2320-209-20-3-1 Section VII (pages 7-190 through 7-196) which components were what. Some of the components don't seem illustrated to scale, which confused me when trying to put the whole assemblage together, but I figured it out. If you have existing components in their original positions for reference, which I did not, it would probably be easier to decipher.
Now, here's where the fun starts. I decided to use fishing line as a safety wire, tying it to the steering gearbox end and pulling the horn wire up through the steering wheel. It worked fine. I got the components assembled onto the horn as the manual instructed and pulled the fishing line from the bottom of the steering box, pulling the horn wire back down. Pretty soon I found the horn wire seemed to be snagging on something. I tried pulling it out and back in a bunch of times, spinning it around, nothing. My guess is there must be a narrow opening with a lip somewhere, probably where the shaft enters the gearbox, and my fishing line is pulling the plug end of the wire at an angle so that it always traps itself against that lip.
I tried re-tying the string such that it would pull it straighter, but no luck, same problem. Then I tried using a thin gauge of wire I had sitting around-- probably 22 gauge. Tied it to the gearbox end of the fishing line and pulled it up through the steering column. Cut the fishing line off and wrapped the wire around the plug end of the horn wire. Pulled it through, and before I knew it, the wire came out the gearbox without the horn wire attached. How on earth was I supposed to get the horn wire down now?!
Then it came to me. I grabbed my trusty old fiberglass fish sticks-- flexible but firm, narrow rods traditionally used for fishing ethernet and fiber cables through walls and ceilings-- and tried shoving them down the steering column. They were just the right size to fit past the hole in the contact washer in the horn button assembly. A millimeter larger, and it wouldn't have fit through. I put down four sticks, and then it stopped. My heart dropped. I figured it was getting stuck in the same place as the horn wire was. I checked the steering box, and lo and behold, there was the yellow line sticking out the end! It had simply gotten stuck on the frame in front of the box.
On the steering wheel end, I tried different ways to connect the horn wire plug end to the end of the fish sticks: tape, fishing line, thin wire. None of them worked. Some made the wire too big to fit through the contact washer. All failed while being pulled through. Then in desperation I tried shoving the plug end of the horn wire into the female screw end of one of the sticks (each stick has a male screw and female screw end so they can be assembled together to make as long or as short of a rod as you need). To my surprise, it fit perfectly. The female screw threads grab on to it just enough that you can screw it in and it holds tight. It probably scrapes the connector a little, but in my position, I couldn't care less.
I went back to the gearbox end and pulled the rods through. The rod screw ends I believe were getting caught slightly on whatever lip caused all this trouble to begin with, but with a bit of jiggling and bending the rods, they got past it easily. After less than a minute, I had the horn wire out the gearbox end and secured at the steering wheel end (see pix 3 - 4).
I am not a gearhead, not by a long shot, but one of the skills I picked up in the IT world running cables through walls came in handy in this world.
For those who want to reproduce this solution or have this tool on hand just in case, I used 3/16 inch rods. Specifically this product (HFT 33' Electric Fiberglass Wire Pull Rods Fish Tape, though the storage case that came with it says the brand is CEN-TECH, item 65236). I expect any 3/16 inch rod set from any manufacturer would do. I got it ten years ago, and it's been used on and off for a lot of projects through the years. Today it absolutely earned its keep, well worth the money even if I had only used it today. There are much better brands out there, but this is what I had handy, and hey, I can't complain about this one's performance.
Oh, also when installing the big rubber button at the end (this was an old style button kit with the large round rubber button rather than the self-contained button that plugs in to the horn wire), I found it easier to pull the outside part of the rubber back, forcing the center forward, sort of like those old rubber popper toys we had in the 90s that you'd turn inside out and they'd snap and jump into the air. This extrudes the boss (the protrusion in the middle of the inside of the button that's meant to be shoved into the plastic piece you've already installed to the wheel and hold the rubber piece on) and makes it waaaaay easier to shove it in. Don't be like I was at first and try to brute force it.