Car: 1986 Trans Am.

Problem number one: horn doesn't work. I think that it's directly related to...

Problem number two: when I turn off the car, or open the doors, the tail lights, rear and front turn signals flash for about 30 seconds or so. Also, all of the inside lights: the instruments, the floor and ceiling lights, also flash.

I *think* that that's the alarm sounding. If so, then the previous owner disabled the horn because the alarm kept going off.

Other information: on the radio/temp control panel, there's a little red LED that flashes in time to the lights flashing. When the driving light button is pushed in, the indicator light just to the right of it also flashes along with the outside lights. Under the dash, directly underneath the steering wheel, is a little push-button. Not the clicky kind, just a little spring-loaded button.

When all of the lights flash, there's an audible "ding-ding, ding-ding, ding-ding" from under the dash somewhere. All of this leads me to believe that it's the alarm, and if the horn were connected, that would be sounding as well. Now, as for the push button. Whenever all of this is going on, I push the button and hold it for about 2 or 3 seconds, it all stops. One more piece of evidence to lead me to my conclusion.

So now my question. How would I go about disabling this so that I can re-enable the horn. That's more important at the moment. For the life of me I cannot locate a fuse anywhere.

I also have this problem: over night the battery died. Yesterday I drove the car 40+miles to get a feel for it. During the trip I turned it off while I went into wal mart for lunch (subway) with the family, was in there about an hour. Car started fine. Hit the gas station to top off, 5 minutes. Car started fine. Got home, went to bed. In the morning, the battery was dead. Well, I should say, it isn't charged enough to start the car. Headlights dim when I turn the key and I get the rapid clicking for a second before... nothing.

William

 

Everything you describe is in line with an aftermarket alarm. Theoretically you should be able to dig around and locate the brain box and remove the alarm. Depending on how it's installed, it may have a starter kill feature that may cause the car not to start if you don't reconnect some of the original wiring.

Chances are the alarm doesn't have anything to do with why your horn doesn't work. When you push the horn button do you hear the horn relay under the dash click? If the relay doesn't click, at least you know where to start. If it clicks but the horns do nothing it could be an open in the circuit or just junk horns. The OEM horns are crap, they fail very often.

 

Thank you for the quick reply. I rooted around under the dash, and followed the wires from the push-button I described, and found this: http://www.amazon.com/Install-Essent...outThisProduct

After I removed it, by puling the quick-connect harness, turned the car on (won't start, dead battery), then turned it back off and closed the door. No flashing lights. Then I opened the door (drivers), no flashing, no "ding-ding, ding-ding". So, hopefully that's that, unless there are other things I need to disconnect that are related to this.

As for the horn, when I press the horn button, there's nothing. No relay click from anywhere. In my experience, the horns are usually located under the front bumper, is this the same with this car? The next step is to locate that and see if the wires are still attached.

 

Update.

I tried to jump the TA with my Corolla. It took a while for the battery to charge, I'm talking half an hour, enough to *try* to turn over. Then I noticed that under the dash I heard that clicking noise again, and on a hunch I looked at the tail lights... they were flashing. So I removed the under-the-dash cover again and rooted around until I found the source of the clicking. I found this: http://www.drdetailshop.com/v300esp.htm
I removed all of the wires from it and the lights stopped flashing, and tried the car again, and right away it started. It seems that this little alarm system was draining the battery faster than it could charge.
Next was the horn. I found it, bolted to the body behind the drivers' side headlight. The wires were cut and capped off. So I spliced them back together. Still didn't work. So then I took the horn cap off the steering wheel, and noticed that the horn wire was sitting in there loose. When I tried to put it back into the hole in the steering column I found that the plastic cylinder it attaches to was broken. I held the wire in and tried the horn button and it sounded. So... now I need to find a replacement cylinder to hold the wire in.
So far... I've found nothing that isn't too majorly wrong. The car starts now, and aside from the holes in the muffler and tail pipes emitting carbon dioxide, it's pretty much drivable.
Surprisingly, too, is that I don't see any rust under the car. That there is a major plus. That's probably because the car spent most of it's lifetime in New Mexico.