This cracks me up!
Our family lived in Southern California when I was a little kid, and that was
long before the day of the Rim Blow horn. There were old cars in our
neighborhood that use to blow their horns from the sun beating down through the
windshield onto the horn ring, or so we were told. One was a '49 Chevy and the
other was a '51 Ford. It seems to me that it used to happen in store parking
lots all the time too.
I still don't understand how the sun could force the horn to blow, but back
then it was not uncommon, although as a kid, I would have believed anything. My
parents '48 Chrysler Town and Country Convertible never did that, and we always
ran it around with the top down on a sunny day. When they got rid of it and
drove the '60 Imperial, that never happened to it either.
Paul
In a message dated 5/4/2004 1:41:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
cbody67tx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> On one of my Chrysler products (a 1970 C-body), I was "lucky" to acquire one
>that had the Rim Blow horn in the steering wheel. I bought the car in 1975.
>When they were new, that feature was touted as a safety feature as you only
>had to squeeze the wheel to get the horn to blow, instead of pounding on
>places that might make the horn work on the steering wheel.
>
> As delivered, it worked most of the time. When the temp was above about 80
>degrees and the car was in the sun with the windows rolled up, the horn would
>activate by itself. The fix was to unplug the horn relay. What I found when
>the horn ceased to work (and took the cover off the relay) was a severely
>cooked relay. There was much oily gook inside from the insulation of the wire
>windings that made it all work. A new relay got things working again, until
>there was something that made the Rim Blow toot it's own horn again. I also
>went in search of a steering wheel that had a regular horn setup in it too.
>
> The instrument panel items sound like a poor ground issue. On the Chryslers
>that share that general instrument panel design, there are a few hidden ground
>straps in the floodlight lighting for the instrument panel gauge area, which
>you can see if you look at that area from the floor area looking upward. One
>of two Phillips head screws that hold the plastic panels together contact with
>them. Not sure if that might help
> the problems you have, though.
>
> Just some thoughts,
> W Bell
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