The center piece of my steering wheel had been broken. The only way I could get it to stay on is to actually glue the horn button (don't know if that's the right name, the center piece with the camaro emblem on it) to the retainer that holds it to the steering wheel.

That of course means that now that the horn is hooked up (no power at the horn itself, now repaired) it will blow constantly if I don't come up with a way to repair the button.

Do I have to replace the whole thing or is there an alternative, besides having no horn?

 

what wheel do you have? I'm going to assume since its a Z you have the 3 spoke w/ the round horn button? What originally broke? the ring? or the three little plastic retaining tabs, that are melted to hold the button to the ring?

 

Yep, 3 arm spokes in the steering wheel. Round Button.

The part that broke are the plastic tabs that are melted to the button itself.

 

What I did with mine is I very carefully drilled some small holes where each of the plastic tabs was, then used some small screws to screw the ring to the button. Works perfectly when mounted. On thinking about it I cant really see how just gluing the ring to the button would cause the horn to go off all the time. It may be something inside the column, like a broken wire or the horn contact on the retainer under the lockplate is shorting on something. How the horn button works is the wire conects to one of the tab on the bottom of the button and when pressed it grounds against the ring and the steering wheel, completing the horn circuit, the little wire from the button goes down into the column and can be disconnected from the horn contact ring (the thing the lets you turn the wheel without twisting up a wire) by pushing it in and turning it a half turn, then pulling it out. Vader has a diagram of the steering column and how all of that goes together/hooks up.

 

Nope, nothing is shorting out. Right now I have the wire just taped up and sitting inside of the column.

I'll give it a shot. I think the reason that glueing it causes it to ground the circuit is because in order to get the horn button to stay attached I had to clamp the whole thing together or else it would come off.

The screws are a great idea. Thanks.

I guess I'm so pissed about my stereo shorting out that I didn't really think about it.

This message board is great for thinking for you!

 

ahhh if you clamped both plates together that would do it