Like many parts I end up breaking, this horn wire collar is not reproduced, but lucky for me Nick from Mini-Bitz looks through the wanted section. He has a growing yard full of these hard to find parts. He was able to send me the horn wire, 2pc wire collar, and the brass collar.
Do It Yourself: Horn Wire Collar Replacement
As a rule of thumb, anytime I work on anything to do with the steering I make sure the wheels/tires and steering wheel are straight, pointing forward.
The brass color I need to get to is in-between the steering wheel boss and the turn signal housing. You can barely see it in this pic.
First I remove the turn signal housing. It is held in place by a few screws 2 on top and 2 on bottom.
Then I removed the steering wheel.
Remove the little C-clip on the end of the horn wire.
Remove the rubber tube and spring. And then using a large socket (sorry I don’t remember the size) removed the steering wheel boss. This can be a pain if you don't have the right tool. Lucky I've had mine off a few times, so if comes off easy.
I removed the turn signal lever. You may notice in this pic there is no horn wire. As mine was disconnected/ broken from the collar, it easily pulled out.
At this point you can see the brass collar and can probably replace the parts from here but I ended up removing the complete steering column.
I removed bolt holding the steering drop bracket.
The removed the bolt at the end on the steering column.
I remove the column and took it to my work bench. Here you can see the brass collar.
This is where I ended screwing up the first time. I thought these collars would slip off, but I was wrong. Do not force them. The lower plastic collar will break!!! I assume… to remove this brass collar properly you need to pry up each one of the tabs along the collar, as they are pinched in a groove on the lower plastic collar. As mine was already broken, it just slid off.
The plastic collar will come out in 2 pieces.
You can see in this pic where the horn wire was attached.
This is the new piece. See how the horn wire is fed though the plastic collar.
To install the new collar, start by feeding the wire through the large hole in the steering column, making sure it comes out the top of the column.
Now hold the second half of the plastic collar in place then slide the brass collar on. Slide it down as far as possible. The horn wire has a spring at the end so you will have to press the spring forcing it underneath while you slide the brass collar over it.
This is probably not the correct way to do this, but I ended up using a wrench compressing the brass collar on to the horn wire collar.
Make sure the brass collar is fully seated in the groove on the plastic collar.
Now you can reassemble!!! Reinstall the steering column, securing the lower bolt and the upper drop bracket bolt. The lower bolt has to travel through a groove ni the column so you might have to play around with it a little to get the botl to go through.
Be careful when reinstalling the turn signal lever make sure the brass contact is indeed making contact on to the brass collar. I had to bend it a little.
Now if your wheels and steering column are still straight, look directly down the side of the column. To line up everything correctly, the brass contact should be directly on top, in-line with the little square head bolt coming from the column; this is the turn signal cancel bolt.
Reinstall the steering wheel boss, making sure the big nut is properly tightened. Don’t be alarmed, when the horn wire makes contact with the boss, because the horn will sound. Scared the crap out of me the first time this happened. But this is a good thing. This means everything is working properly. If the horn does not sound, then you have a short or something is not making contact.
Don’t forget to reinstall the rubber tube, spring, and C-clip.
Reinstall steering wheel and horn button. Press horn button, horn make sound. Good. Happy motoring.
