Chrysler Repair: Horn quits working, clock spring, horn buttons


Question
Roland, thanks for your suggestions.
I replaced the #6 fuse and cleaned all the grounds i could find under the hood. I disconnected the 2 horns and re-connected them one at a time and they both work.
Questions: 1. I removed both(2) horn buttons and cleaned the ground area where they screw into the steering wheel, can the plastic buttons be taken apart to clean the contacts on the inside?  
2. Can the other wires(air bag, cruise control) in the clock spring be ok and just the horn wire cause this intermittant problem? i would guess that once the wire(s) in the clockspring break, they would not make intermittant contact anymore? thanks again.
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Followup To
Question -
92 PLY Acclaim 2.5L auto trans. 167k miles. sometimes my horn will quit working. i have cleaned the connections on the horn buttons in the steering wheel and replaced the horn relay. the air bag light and cruise control function normally. problem seems to be happening more often as time goes by.
Answer -
Hi Carl,
I assume that your car has two horns(hi and low frequency) and that both horns stop working at once, not just one horn. The relay and the horn button contacts already having been serviced, I would suggest that you take a look at fuse #6 to make sure that it is fitting tightly in its clips and that the clips and fuse contacts are shiney. Becareful with the fuse socket in that one of the clips is connected directly to the battery and you might do well to disconnect the battery ground should you want to clean the socket into which the fuse is plugged. Also examine the fuse internal wire to see if it might be cracked such as to produce an intermittant connection (fuses can develop cracks like that even though they aren't blown out in the traditional sense).
The other possibility is that the ground wire for the horn circuit has gotten corroded or loose. It is a black wire that is attached to the body directly via the same bolt that holds the ignition coil to the body (on the right side fender shield). If that contact between the bolt head and the wire's end ring or the ring and the body were corroded or loose that too could cause an intermittant horn. So try cleaning and tightening that connection. See if that solves the problem, and if not, then you may want to check the pins of the horn relay socket for for corrosion or dirt, and likewise check the steering column connection between the horn button wire (black wire) and the black/red wire coming into the clockspring connector from the horn relay to make sure that is a good connection. You might also want to verify that the horn buttons are well-grounded to the steering column.
Those are basically all the interconnections that make the horns work, and if all of them were good, the horns should work reliably. I would anticipate you will find a loose or corroded connection that is causing this.
Roland

Answer
Hi Carl,
I'm pleased to learn that you have the horns working. On your questions:
1) I don't find any info on the disassembly of the buttons in my '92 manual, so that is an unknown.
2) I picture the clock spring as consisting of 4 separate wires (or more) and thus it would appear one wire could break while the others remain intact. Again, I haven't taken mine apart yet so I am going on what I see in the circuit diagrams. The clockspring isn't repairable so you pretty much will find out when it in no longer operable for either the horn, the cruise, or the airbag (with a warning no doubt) and thus get an answer to the question.
By the way, do you have a specific point in the system that seems to have been responsible for your failing horns, and the specific fix was to clean the connection?
Thanks for the feedback.
Roland