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Train horn wiring help

1K views 9 replies 4 participants last post by  aeby07 
#1 ·
I bought the truck 6 months ago with a set of 8 horns, 4 on each side. There is a solenoid on both sides. One seams to work properly but when I hook up the one on the other side it somehow sets off the one on the opposite side!
Im no electrician so Im having a hard time figuring this one out.

when the good one is hooked up it works as advertised,

when both are hooked up it holds the good one in the open position (pressing the button does nothing)

Ive tried swapping the positive and negative on the bad solenoid but i don't thing it matters as it didnt change anything.

I tried seeing if it was a bad ground on the bad solenoid by running a long wire directly to the negative terminal on the battery, same result....
 
#2 ·
There is a short somewhere. I have mine hooked directly to my horn wire.

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#3 ·
The guy who had the truck before me had them wired and I cant figure out how he wired them. The normal horn on my truck doesn't work... or anything ells in the steering wheel. Have replaced the clock spring but didn't help. Im not sure if that has something to do with this. All I know is that there is a yellow wire that he spliced coming from a box directly underneath the steering wheel next to the fuse box, and another one going into the back of the fuse box. One is the power but that's all I can make out. I can post a picture if that would help.
 
#4 ·
#5 ·
Do both of them work independently of each other? If not replace bad silnoide. Sounds like coil is shorted out causing other valve to open. If you have a multimeter measure the ohm value of each coil to see if bad coil is shorted.
 
#6 ·
I cant tell which fuse it goes to, It gets lost in the mess of wires. The solenoid that is causing the problems is a brand new one. My wiring/electrical knowledge is extremely limited and as far as I know they don't run independently as both are opened by one button. The solenoid causing the problems is a brand new one, I have a multimeter but how do measure the Ohms?
 
#7 ·
also I tested the solenoid with one of those big 6v batteries, I could hear it open and close so I think that is good?
 
#8 ·
I understand they both work together. What I meant was if you connect each valve separately to ground and positive on battery each will work by themselves. To check coils put meter on ohms and measure resistance of each coil do they match. If everything checks out wire both coils together and see if they will work together with one side grounded and other side to positive side of battery.
 
#10 ·
The only thing that worries me about re wiring everything is cutting the wires that the other wires are spliced into. Im not sure what, if anything, it would effect. Ill be giving it another shot today to test the Ohms and see if I cant get it working. Ill post my results and new problems when Im done
 
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