The horn that wouldn't stop blowing

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CityGuy

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Fifteen years or so ago: We tucked our Bayfield 29 into an abandoned slip beside the US 59 bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway canal at Gulf Shores, AL for the night. Across the ICW was an RV campground. Following morning, a Sunday, I was awake in the pale light before sunup. Misty-foggy. Nobody stirring across the canal or anywhere else in sight. I see an old Ford sedan on the high bank off our stern -- I'd backed in -- with its lights on. Front passenger door open. A couple fishing off the bank near it. Uh oh. Crusader Rabbit wants to save them. Picked up the air horn intending to give a quick toot to get their attention. Button wouldn't move. The last thing anyone should do with an air horn with a stuck botton is pound the button. So . . . horn went off and wouldn't stop. Everything alive and wild for a half-mile around fled. I was trying to pry the button up. No success. Ear-splitting blast continuing. Can got very cold. I threw it in the water. Ferocious burble and then, finally, silence. Silence so profound the surface tension on water droplets could be heard humming. A head had popped out of the car and was siloudetted in the V between the side of the car and the leading edge of the upper door. I called out, as meekly as I could, "Your headlights are on!" Head disappeared, lights went out. I fished the horn out of the water. Turned toward the cabin, saw across the canal a line of people in various aggressive postures. I ducked into the cabin and stayed there. When we left I had first to motor toward the campground, within bottle-throwing distance of it. No bottles went airborne but ever after, when we motored past the campground, I couldn't resist crouching down in the cockpit.
 
Hilarious. I had a similar incident. I was in my corvette at the homecoming game with a queen candidate onboard waiting to drive in front of the stands. A guy I knew walked in front of me and I tapped the horn. The ring stuck and there I was. I jumped out and started pulling fuses. Luck was with me as the first or second one I yanked was the horn. What an embarrassing fiasco.
 
Many years ago (80's) my truck had the latest of radio mobile phones with a switch that would connect the horn when a call was received at the job site. Long story short DW was using my truck while I worked on her car. YEP switch was in the horn position. Needless to say upon her return telling me the horn kept going off in traffic po-ing everyone around was not funny at all. After showing her how to use the radio phone and switch, I moved my stuff into the dog house for a few days. I guess laughter was not called for during said discussion.
 
Hilarious. I had a similar incident. I was in my corvette at the homecoming game with a queen candidate onboard waiting to drive in front of the stands. A guy I knew walked in front of me and I tapped the horn. The ring stuck and there I was. I jumped out and started pulling fuses. Luck was with me as the first or second one I yanked was the horn. What an embarrassing fiasco.
Early 80s: I'd just bought a 70 Ford Galaxy from my car salesman across the street neighbor. A few days after the horn went off in the middle of the night. I fumbled outside, got the hood open, pulled a wire. Horn stopped. I see my portly next-door neighbor heading back inside trying to get his little wife's robe closed over his gut. Next day the car salesman says to me "What would you do to your neighbor if his horn went off in the middle of the night?" I said "I'd find the guy who sold him the car and beat the hell out of him."

Steering wheel was two-spoke and out each spoke were two copper bands separate by a sleeve with inner flanges. Mash and the strips touched and blew the horn. Previous owner must have been thumb-heavy. Top strip was deformed. A change in temperature brought the two strips together. I'd forgotten about this until you told me about your Vette.
 
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No bottles went airborne but ever after, when we motored past the campground, I couldn't resist crouching down in the cockpit.
Great write up! But I expect that any consternation felt by those in attendance was mitigated somewhat by their understanding that it could have been them. :)
 
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Great write up! But I expect that any consternation felt by those in attendance was mitigated somewhat by their understanding that it could have been them. :)
Might be, but they sure didn't look like it.
 
Many years ago (80's) my truck had the latest of radio mobile phones with a switch that would connect the horn when a call was received at the job site. Long story short DW was using my truck while I worked on her car. YEP switch was in the horn position. Needless to say upon her return telling me the horn kept going off in traffic po-ing everyone around was not funny at all. After showing her how to use the radio phone and switch, I moved my stuff into the dog house for a few days. I guess laughter was not called for during said discussion.
I had that too, worst was when you would have the plans on the hood of the truck with myself and few others looking at them and then beep beep. Lol it would make us jump.

We were camping at a state park with only a dozen or so other campers. DW made coffee around 6:30 and sat in the drivers seat, put her feet up and boy did that air sound wake everyone up.
 
We were camping at a state park with only a dozen or so other campers. DW made coffee around 6:30 and sat in the drivers seat, put her feet up and boy did that air sound wake everyone up.
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Early 80s: I'd just bought a 70 Ford Galaxy from my car salesman across the street neighbor. A few days after the horn went off in the middle of the night. I fumbled outside, got the hood open, pulled a wire. Horn stopped. I see my portly next-door neighbor heading back inside trying to get his little wife's robe closed over his gut. Next day the car salesman says to me "What would you do to your neighbor if his horn went off in the middle of the night?" I said "I'd find the guy who sold him the car and beat the hell out of him."

Steering wheel was two-spoke and out each spoke were two copper bands separate by a sleeve with inner flanges. Mash and the strips touched and blew the horn. Previous owner must have been thumb-heavy. Top strip was deformed. A change in temperature brought the two strips together. I'd forgotten about this until you told me about your Vette.
I had that happen in my '70 Mustang at high school one day ('72 or early '73 most likely). Found a note on the car that the horns had been unplugged because they kept going off. I replaced the pad on the spokes which had the horn "switch" in it. They would do that in the heat, with the car closed up.

Charles
 
I had that happen in my '70 Mustang at high school one day ('72 or early '73 most likely). Found a note on the car that the horns had been unplugged because they kept going off. I replaced the pad on the spokes which had the horn "switch" in it. They would do that in the heat, with the car closed up.

Charles
Yeah, that "rim blow" steering wheel wasn't one of Ford's "better ideas". When I was doing restorations, I hated them.
 
The backyard of our old house opposed the phone companies local service truck parking lot (fenced in concrete paved 1 acre lot, where they park their bucket trucks, service trucks and other vehicles). One night around 11 pm the horn started going off on one of their trucks for no apparent reason, one constant honk, not the pulsing of a car alarm. Do you have any idea how long it takes for a horn to drain the batteries on a phone company service truck. In don't know either, all I can say it that by 7 am the next morning that horn was sounding weak and pathetic, not sure if the battery was running down or the horn was dying.
 
30 years ago the horn on my '78 Firebird stuck when I changed lanes. I was driving in stop and go traffic and I got a lot of "hand gestures" from other drivers. I couldn't believe the "spring" in the steering wheel was nothing but 1/16" foam rubber that had crumbled to dust. The foam rubber I replaced it with is now twice as old. Maybe I should replace it again? At my age now the police would put me through a mental evaluation and my wife might testify against me :)
 

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