Gremlins

A few weeks ago the DL needed a warrant and I was down at the testing station first thing in the morning to beat the rush.  The bike passed everything until I went to hit the horn.  Instead of deafening everyone in the building I got nothing and all the lights and gauges died on the bike...

Not good!  And so started the investigation.  The WOF guy was not much use to me and after pressing the horn button himself a few times (and probably damaging it - see further down) left me to it.

As everything was dead I naturally assumed it was a fuse - but which one, and where was it hiding?  I figured it must be the main fuse as I had no ignition but the first fuse box I looked in just had accessory type fuses in it.  Where was the main?  Time for some googling on my phone...

Thar she blows!

As you can see from the pic above it was right in front of me.  I quickly had the cover off and discovered the spare fuse was also located in there too.

New fuse in, I flicked on the key and was back in action again.  That is, until I hit the horn - oops there goes another fuse.  With no spares left I wandered across the road to a garage and bought another one (actually a packet of them but only one 30 amp).

As I replaced the fuse I decided I would not touch the horn again, just ride home, sort out whatever was going wrong and then come back to finish off the warrant.  This time when I turned the key on the horn instantly came on!  I quickly turned the key off, got my warrant so I was legal again, disconnected the horn (back to illegal again I guess) and got myself home for further diagnosis.

The first thing I noticed when I got home was that the horn button looked like it was pushed in - it was almost flush with the switch block.

Well, that gave me a starting point...

Not really sure if I want to be pulling this apart...

Sure enough the spring under the horn button had been crushed so the horn was button was not returning after being pushed.

I managed to fix up the spring (I will need a new one at some stage) and then get everything back together properly.  I then hooked the horn back up to the battery again and turned the key on.

No blaring horn so that was a good start, now to press the horn button - click, click...Not good.  So there was something else wrong somewhere - the relay seemed to be clicking....hmmmm.  I know let's just ignore it for a few weeks....

Fast forward to today and I started pulling things apart so I could check wiring and plugs etc.  When I pulled the little front, lower cowling off the front of the bike so I could get at the Stebel a whole lot of little stones fell out but the wires to the horn looked good.

All the other connections and wiring looked ok - what now?  I know, let's try the horn - Baaarrrrrrrrppppppp!  Great, the horn works, but why?

So now I have a working horn but do I still have some mysterious gremlin lurking in the wiring, waiting for me to be way out the back of beyond so that it can ruin my day?  Who knows - I hope not, watch this space...