Quick horn question...

[mauibarber]

My Dixie horn is not wired up correctly on my 69 charger.  It plays at different speeds depending on how fast I am going (or how much current is going to the battery.) I have a high output alternator.   I would like to wire it up to a constant 12 volt source.  When the car is off it plays at the correct pace. 

I follow the wires for the horn and find that the power wire (pink wire) seems to go into the dash cluster.  And the black with white stripe wire goes into the horn switch.  Is this correct?  If I wanted to rewire it would I cut the pink wire or is there another wire that powers the horn.   Any help would be appreciated.

Perhaps just a voltage reducing diode would work.  Any idea where I can get a diode that will drop voltage about 2 volts?  I checked radio shack and napa with no luck.
Would something like this work?
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062600&cp=2032058.2032230.2032279&parentPage=family
-Alex

[Bandit72]

i have mine hooked up directly to the batter and it still does that, so i dont' know what to tell ya....

[Plumcrazy]

In theory the voltage regulator in the link would do what you want it to do but it's only rated at 1 amp.   Horns draw a lot more current than that so you would end up frying it in no time.

How about wiring the horns to a second battery thats not connected to the charging system. 

[mauibarber]

Somebody suggested using a smaller guage wire from the relay to the horn.  Apparently the horns are sensitive to the size of wire you use.  I am going to try getting a much smaller wire and do some trial and error tests.  Any other ideas?
-Alex

[mikepmcs]

I have my gl horn wired to a 12 v accessory source and it does just fine.  as long as you have a good ground, find yourself 12v when the key is in accessory and use that lead. 
no reason for it to go up and down with the motor( i don't see any reason why 12v switched wouldn't work either((ignition on))).  the horn itself should have a mechanism to keep it at 12v and sustain the correct audible at all times.try to rewire it first though.  no need to spend money on a diode when it's a 2 wire system, if the rewire doesn't work then maybe the horn is bad.

my wire around 18 awg.

looks like you have the same horn i do as well

v/r
Mike

[mauibarber]

I dont believe the horn has anything to regulate it at 12volts.  Hook yours up to 13v and you will hear it play faster.  I will work on it this weekend and see what happens.  It sounds like you shouldn't wire up the dixie horn the same way as a standard horn.  Perhaps I need to wire into another source.

[mikepmcs]

well, if it makes a difference, mine is wired to a button on the underside of my dash, not the steering wheel.  I don't see why it would though, power is power.

v/r
Mike

[mauibarber]

Part of my problem is that I have a high output alternator and the power is coming off of that.  You may have a smaller alternator than I do, plus wired off an accessory power source.  Chicks dig my big alternator.

[Bandit72]

Somebody suggested using a smaller guage wire from the relay to the horn.  Apparently the horns are sensitive to the size of wire you use.  I am going to try getting a much smaller wire and do some trial and error tests.  Any other ideas?
-Alex

i got rid of my relay all together, just hooked it straight up with a toggle switch under the dash.....mine doubles it's speed when i did that...

[Bandit72]

oh, and make sure it's oiled good...my buddy had one that he didn't oil for over a year and it almost completely stopped spinning