So this woke me up at 3 a.m. and I started looking into it a little bit more problem 1 was a bad multimeter I've used this thing for years learned to trust it but something didn't seem right swapped over to another multimeter and lo and behold I do have ground at the column Which makes sense.

My issue appears to be The spacer And or The turn signal cancelling cam / horn contact .

When I take the spacer off I get intermittent function But I can ground it to the column and get the horn to honk . A new problem has surfaced after Multiple times of having the horn on and off I now have a situation where If I don't put the wheel on just right and really carefully then the horn just starts honking and I have to pull the wheel off to. make it stop. I think it's a problem with height of the pin on the horn contact but I didn't have time to investigate further This morning

 

so I 3D printed a new spacer that's ~3/4 height and now it makes contaxt so that was part of the problem.

however this afternoon I came in and no ground on the column?! so I'm beginning to think the ground is via maybe the turn signal switch and the problem is there?wasn't my trusty multimeter after all. if I ground the column to the dash. I can then get the horn to honk unfortunately it won't stop. anybody have any tets for the GM style turn signal? right now I have 12v at the brass button for the horn activation and also at the G wire which is the trigger wire for the relay.

reconfigured the relay to match FR just to triple check that wasn't the issue. no change.

my continuity tester beeps intermittently and shows 0.458 if I test between ground and the black wire. "G" and horn honks if I ground G (or that brass button) which is what's supposed to happen.

is there's a fault in the turn signal switch somewhere? signals and brakes work fine.

I also have continuity between the YELLOW /GREEN/WHITE wires on the column side. those are M/N/P on the plug and control LR turn /RR turn/brake

 

does the tester beep if you test between black wire and the body of the column?(if you can find a paint-free place to test it)...wait, no, I am thinking about this wrong...there should be continuity between the horn button(or at least its contact plate) and the steering shaft itself with the wheel installed

 

yes. there is continuity there. it's almost like the switch which is the brass button is stuck closed. if you look at my first pic up top the ground from the column should not be continuous it's an NO circuit . but it appears that it is. so instead of the circuit being normally open and closes upon activation its staying closed and as soon as I put on the horn it sounds.

just reaching now for answers.

 

black wire as in the ground trigger wire G?
then yes/no. it beeps but it's a weaker intermittent beep. and instead of reading zero or near zero on multimeter it reads 0.457 same as the brass button in the pic above and this is with or without ground added to the column.

not sure why I have this intermittently grounded column

 

edited

 

The way your hand-drawn diagram is showing is that you have a resistor of some sort wired in parallel with the 85-86 bridge...so the circuit is always open as soon as you connect the horn(not sure how much power is going through the resistor, but evidently enough to keep the circuit open...or as you said, the switch is stuck open(either is a possibility) this could indicate a clearance issue of some type with the horn button.

Back to relay wiring...in general, 85 is always a ground connection, 30 is always the main power channel(usually 12v+ hot-at-all-times, or at least in run/start depending on the circuit in question). When using a voltage trigger, 86 is the signal pin, and 85 connects to ground. When using a ground switched relay, 85 becomes the signal pin and 86 is spliced into the same power supply as 30....for something like a horn, I don't see any advantage to running a ground switch vs. a power switch....in other words, wiring the horn to pin 86 and grounding pin 85 should work just fine for you....have you tried it that way?

 

I wired it that way because it is a relay in my fuse box. the polarity was chosen for me. meaning 2 of the wires were already terminated one to the actual horns and one to the horn. trigger. and I'd have to cut and splice and rewire to change the way it was setup. Knowing that the grounding of 85 vs 86 didn't really matter, I just kept it the same.. however, after further inspection the relays can be spun 180 degrees and therefore flipping the polarity. I've done that and the result is the same.

as for the resistor drawn in the circuit, yes that's the type of relay that's installed, it was the horn relay circuit before as well but it was 12v trigger instead of ground. , it has a resistor in-line instead of a diode. the circuit can be flipped since the resistor doesn't care about direction of current flow, unlike a diode. purpose is same to lessen spikes backwards through circuit. I'm not aware of a reason it woukd keep the circuit open but I'm willing and planning to run a whole new relay tomorrow becuase I've run out of other options.

I guess it's possibly the relay is stuck switched on.

 

I agree with your thought on the resister. It does not provide continuity in the circuit, it just allows some current to flow around the trigger side of the relay when contact is made at the horn button. For a horn a resistor or diode should not be needed. I would plug in a standard relay and give it a go.

A factory horn is runs 12v+ through the horn button via the yellow wire. The easy way to insure ground through the horn button switch is to cut the yellow wire near the fuse box and cap the end coming out of the fuse box. Then ground the end of the yellow wire coming out of the column. Now on the relay end you remove the trigger leg that goes to ground and connect it to 12v positive. That reverses the circuit without concern if the column itself has a good ground.

 

sorry I'll clarify. the painless harness followed OEM specs except had a 12v switched horn relay, that wasn't original to 65. I added the FR column, which I think is really ididit (rebranded) and it's got a standard GM horn/signal switch. (the only reason I bought the FR was because they paired it with the microsteer EPAS precut and ready to go, no sourcing parts etc. that part works very well)

I think ground is intended to come from column to dash, but mine is powder coated and therefore isn't grounded. this has been a weird intermittent problem and the grounding makes me think a bad wire in the switch. I will simply ground the column to dash via a wire to one of the mounting brackets.

So I'm going to wire a separate relay this morning and see if it fixes my problem. if not, that will isolate it to the column and switch. I just am. not quite sure how to troubleshoot the switch.

I also have a replacement relay I'll swap before I rewire just to make sure it's not something weird with that relay.

 

incremental update: rewired the system with a new relay independent of the fuse panel. same issue. wasn't the wiring. Also discovered that the wheel wasn't grounding out and causing the honking, it was actually the turn signal cancelling cam that sits between the wheel and column. That little disc has a copper ring that was being pushed onto the screw for the turn signal arm. I put tape across the screw and it and that worked to lessen that issue but the constant motion of the wheel will remove that tape eventually. I also had access to another 3 spoke wheel like my 50+yr old one. This wheel does work better and does a better job of honking more consistently but it's still not great. My conclusion is that the system they use to adapt their GM column to the ford spline and older system of horn contacts on the wheel has to be near perfect with mere millimeters of tolerance before it fails to work. I have ordered a new 6 bolt wheel and they are sending me their matching wheel/column adapter that's designed to work with this system. I'll update, probably next week, when I get all the pieces and parts in see how it goes.

as of now:

-My wiring was correct
-I needed to add a ground wire because the powder coated column wasn't making adequate contact
-My original wheel with more than a few cracks and imperfections didn't have the tolerances needed to make the system work as designed- maybe a newer repop wheel might do better but the tolerances are very tight to get it work.
-will try a ford splined 6 bolt wheel with a different horn mechanism

 

Glad you got it mostly sorted. If they make a 6 bolt boss with horn contacts someone must make a wheel and button. I have a 6 bolt Moto Lita and it has no provisions for a horn button. I use a Ron Francis turn signal arm with a button on the end for my horn.

 

Yes horn button from Scott Drake to match the wheel. If that doesn't work however I love your idea for turn signal and horn button. do you have a link?.

like this?horn turn signal

 

ok the one I posted will fit my FR column, the one you posted woukd fit an OEM column. good to know. hope I get it working without needing it but will keep this bookmarked.

 

I added a couple pics above.

 

Closing the loop on this saga... Ordered the 6 bolt wheel and the horn button didn't work ( that was both a scott drake issue and a FR one.) Horn button was too tall for the very shallow FR adapter but the button was questionable as well. Contacted FR, they claimed to have never seen a 6 hole adapter like the one I purchased from SD, They had no solutions. I tried horn buttons from 2 other manufacturers and none worked with their horn adapter or if they did, not with a wheel I wanted to use.
So I swapped to a 9 bolt adapter and then the standard horn button avail from many suppliers works fine. however, I did have to modify the FR adapter. ( I had to tap a hole for a ground wire to complete the 2 wire horn circuit.) This modification was nowhere in their instructions, but I saw it in a video on their website where they simply show hooking the wire up but never mention, Oh BTW you WILL need to do this because we chose NOT to make the hole for you.

So after hours and hours tracing and verifying wiring, relays and ground wires it came down to VERY poor documentation and design by FR. I will say they were excellent at supporting me throughout the issue and sent me multiple parts, many free, in an effort to make it right.
My solutions:
1. powder coated column does not carry ground signal- needed a ground wire to the column
2. the weird cancelling cam designed to be used with the rim-blown 3 spoke wheel, only works if there is ZERO flex in the horn hub and even then it's sporadic and can ground against the column if tightened too much---honking horn when you turn-I'd avoid this option. plan on getting a new wheel with heir setup.
3. their plastic spacer is required to close the gap in the column/wheel it's PLASTIC and really doesn't look good. using a 5/6 or 9 hole adapter removes need for the spacer.
4. their 5/6 hole column adapter didn't accept specific horn buttons due to it's shallow depth. I had to swap to a 9 hole adapter and horn button to accommodate the style wheel I wanted. I could have used heir 5/6 but really to get the style I wanted in the time I wanted so I opted to just jump to the 9 hole/bolt adapter.
5. modified the 9 bolt adapter by drilling and tapping a hole for a ground wire to complete the 2 wire horn button

I spent more time chasing down issues with poor design and documentation on the horn and wheel setup than I did installing the whole EPAS system tat was the reason for the column switch...If I did it again I would not try and keep the OEM wheel knowing FR limitations, for that reason I would not get the ford splined column but just jump directly into their GM spline where the wiring and horn issues have long been sorted. I ultimately ended up using an adapter for the column so the spline made no difference except to complicate the issue


I hope this helps someone who might be dealing with the same issues..\

ultimate wheel selected was a volante Wheel with SD horn Button

second choice was SD feroce corso wheel with SD button. the high gloss chrome was a bit too much and really showed finger prints badly so I went with above wheel.