Are both wires to the horms supposed to be hot or is my car just being an evil pain in the arse? Which wire is supposed to be the ground?

 

mike

They are both grounds. When you push on the horn it completes the circuit. The power is down at the horn and goes to the fuse panel.

Are both wires to the horns supposed to be hot? Which wire is supposed to be the ground?

If you leave the horn plugged in, you'll see "hot" on the horn button side. That's normal. Please be more specific.

Both wires at the horn on BOTH horns are hot...The only ground i have at the moment is when the horn is bolted to the car. Usually causes not stop noise untill I remove the horn again. I was in the process of putting new horns in when this happened, and I did use a test light to make sure one was a ground. i can say that the darn things are much louder than the stock ones. I have not checked the fuse box though I can't see how a fuse would cause this.

Horn trouble is not uncommon with old Subies, both my ‘87s have issues, seems to be a corrosion problem. I had you exact problem on my wagon, for me, one of the horns had corroded enough to ground out and make the other one go off. I just disconnected the bad one. Do you have a multimeter? Are the “new” horns for a Subaru or something else?

 

Like the others said, power comes from the fuse to each horn and the ground comes from the horn button. Both parallel circuits. So with both horns unhooked one wire at each horn should be hot and one open (goes ground when you push the horn). On the horns you should be able to measure a resistance across the terminals (4 ohms or so), but nether terminal should be grounded to the case.

Hope that helps

Gary

Oops, my bad. I thought you were talking about the wires at the horn button One of the few times I didnt read the post more than once. What kind of horns did you install?

Blazer highway blaster horns (AutoZone)..just a touch beefier than stock. I didn't check the resistance b4 installation so I will have to pull one or both to check when I get a chance. In order for me to keep them from grounding when mounted I used a bit of wood slightly longer than the mounting bracket. so it cannot ground unless the button is pushed. hence the problem.

 

Mike

Sounds like maybe those horns aren't designed to work with the stock Subaru system.

 

Gary

that could be. if nothing else then i guess I have set of horns for my pickup.