Where is the horn relay on a 1984 corvette located?

Answer 1

Step 1.Save yourself some time by first making sure your horns work. Dont use a power lead finder. There is too much resistance in it and even if your horns are good the horn wont sound. Take a heavy gauge jumper wire from the + side of the battery, directly to the horn terminal. Both of my horns didnt sound when tested like this. One was dead and the other came to life when I adjusted the horn diaphragm screw.Step 2.Check the steering wheel horn button. Yeah I know, the horn button goes down and it feels like it makes contact, but trust me finding the horn relay is the toughest part of making your horns work. This is easier to do than write about. To remove the horn button, set the steering wheel so that the Chevrolet symbol is straight up and down, then setup a garage light or have a friend hold a flashlight on the horn button. You should see a black flat stem (its plastic so be gentle) at top center of the horn button, take a butterknife or similar thin flat tool and gently press in towards the center of the steering wheel. At the same time with your other hand pull gently up until the plastic locking tab is free. If you break one of these tabs, you need to re-order from the junkyard or online vette supplier.There are 3 of these, you can probably free up the other 2 just using you hand or tool as needed to remove the horn button. The horn contact plate is now exposed and has 4 plastic locking tabs kind of like the horn button. Pull up on the horn contact plate and remove it with your tool like you did the horn button. Your horn grounding lead wire is connected to the horn contact plate so don't yank on the horn contact plate. Once the horn contact plate is free of the steering wheel, disconnect the horn grounding wire.If you break a plastic locking tab on the horn contact plate don't panic. You can place u-shaped fast speed nuts on the steering wheel and Phillips drive screws with a carriage bolt type head to secure the horn contact plate. I just had to extend the holes left by the broken plastic tabs about 1/4" each towards the center of the plate. Cant use carriage bolts cause of the square shank and there's nothing to tighten.Once the horn contact plate is clear of the steering wheel, take the horn grounding lead wire and make sure you touch it to metal. My vette's horns sound without turning on the key at this point. If the horn doesnt sound, turn the key on as if the car was running, if the horn again doesnt sound try the key in the accessory mode. If your horn does sound, the trouble is the horn button & horn contact plate. If your horn doesnt sound the trouble is in the horn relay. Leave the horn contact plate out until you replace the horn relay, just to make sure you don't have to work on you horn button also. The reason my horns didnt work is because the horn contact plate is plastic and even though it has re-inforcement to keep it straight, the center of the contact plate over time had bowed away from the contact button. You can either send away for the button & contact assembly or fix it yourself. Drill a small hole in the silver metal of the contact plate. Place a small Phillips drive machine screw with the head type described earlier, the head faces the brass contact point, threw the hole you drilled and secure with small lock washer and nut. This shortens the distance from the brass contact point to the silver metal contact point. Sometime during all this I hope you burnished/sanded all horn contact points. Once the contact points are cleaned use silicon dielectric grease on all the contact points. After you have installed your heightened contact point on the "clean" horn contact plate, connect your horn button to the contact plate. If you don't have one, go to radio shack and buy an analog, not digital volt ohm meter. Make it cheap, tell the sales person you're only going to measure the 12 volts for your car battery. Take your horn button with you. Have them show you how to set up the meter for resistance to test your assembled horn button. No pressure, the needle stays still, press the horn button & the needle moves over. Have them show you how to measure 12 volts DC and reverse DC voltage. Have them use one of their cheapo give away dc batteries. With the meter set up for 12 volts DC you can measure voltage going to each horn. The meter is probably cheaper that sending away for parts & shipping.Step 3.We are now to the point where you have done all of the above and your horn still doesntsound off. My vette is an automatic so the first thing you have to do to remove the horn relay is set the parking break. Next move the transmission lever to the rear at 1.Remove the Center Console Framing. Pull the right side of the frame out like you are opening a book, you will also have to pull the left side down so that you can clear the top 3 or 4 inches of the left side retaining panel. The Horn Relay is located behind the "Oil Pressure" instrument panel assembly which is above the radio. Once the instrument panel is removed you will see a fuse on the left side of the left hand partition. check the fuse. The relay is on the left side of the right hand partion. Pull the relay and base out of the metal retaining clip. Then using both hands to pull back the retaining tabs and at the same time exterting force to separate the relay base from the horn relay, remove the relay.Naturally I had to tear apart the area under my steering wheel, then pulled out my radio, all of the previous were not necessary, then with the sound of Chevrolet engineers laughing in the back of my head, I said why not the oil pressure panel. Bingo!! But imagine the swearing that happened with everything torn apart only to find that my horn button was the cause all the time. Curses to engineers that never work on their product. But I still like my Vette !!