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My '49 F1 is about to get her first horn.
Despite a few pictures in the Shop Manual, I can't figure out how to feed the horn button wire through the end of the steering shaft. I have disassembled the horn button, and can slide the wire down the shaft until it hits the end. From under the truck, there appears to be a gasket and cap at the end of the shaft held in place by a cotter pin at the bottom, and my fear is that if I remove it to allow the wire to poke through, all of the steering gear lubricant will leak out.
Do I pull the cotter pin out and take my chances, or is there another route for the wire?
Also, it seems that some horns require a relay, yet the wiring diagram for my truck does not show one. I bought an old 6V horn off ebay and tested it today off the battery and it made a great racket just by grounding it to the frame and touching the negative post. I suspect that is all I will need to do once I figure out the horn wire, but any different advice is welcome.
Last edited by mjflynn101; Oct 16, 2016 at 10:10 PM.
Reason: Typo in title
The horn wire does run through the steering column. There isn't any need to disassemble anything to feed the wire. If you don't see the bottom opening, try feeding a thinner wire from the top. If there hasn't been a wire in the column for a while, the passage may be plugged with crud. A little cleaning may show you the way.
Do you have the horn bracket?
The stock set up for the 49s did not have a horn relay. If you are staying original, wire it like Henry intended.
There is not supposed to be a cotter pin there. There is a tube brazed into the bottom plate of the steering box that sticks up to above the fluid level in the box, into the shaft. As long as the tube is intact, it won't leak any more than most boxes leak anyway.
Try feeding a stiff wire through the bottom hole up to the top of the column. Tape the new wire to the stiff wire and pull it down and out the hole at the steering box.
Thanks for the fast replies. I will tackle these ideas tomorrow night.
FortyNiner asked a question above about horn brackets. I do not have any original brackets that appear to be under the hood in a 2 horn setup from the shop manual. There is a mounting bracket on the horn I bought but I am not sure where I will mount it. The wiring harness I got from Mac's has the horn connections at the same place as the headlight wiring near the front left corner of the vehicle. Likely I will extend wiring from there once I figure out where I will mount my horn.
IIRC, the two horn setup mounted on the underside of the hood is from '51-'52 and they did use a relay. The relay is mounted on the right hand side of the firewall, close to the hood hinge. The '49-'50 horn, single, mounted vertically on the left hand inner fender just in front of the radiator and it did not use a relay.
Mark
The 49s have a single horn set up that was mounted between the radiator and the headlight on the drivers side. There is a hole in the inner valance for the headlight/parking light wires; the horn fits just beneath, The larger, under hood mounted, trumpet horns showed up in later years, as Mark stated.
The horn wire does run through the steering column. There isn't any need to disassemble anything to feed the wire. If you don't see the bottom opening, try feeding a thinner wire from the top. If there hasn't been a wire in the column for a while, the passage may be plugged with crud. A little cleaning may show you the way.
Do you have the horn bracket?
The stock set up for the 49s did not have a horn relay. If you are staying original, wire it like Henry intended. Henry had nothing to do with it, he was forced to give up the presidency of FoMoCo in 1945, died in 1947.
So Bill, near as I can determine, Henry's grandson, the president of Ford Motor Company in 1949, was named...wait for it....Henry! Out of respect for you, cause you have earned it multiple times over, I'll just call him Hank the Deuce. Deal?
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