horn brass contact ring under wheel

[minimike]

When I got my 79 spider, I had no horn sounding when the button was pushed. Upon inspection when I took it apart,
I found one of the two copper contact rings broken, and the brass contact ring under the wheel was heavily grooved,
and some of the contact area was worn away. Like a hole in the brass ring.

Yesterday, I fabricated a new contact ring. I used a brass panel from the hardware store that one might use to keep
ya feet from kicking a door. Commonly called a door kick. This brass comes in different thicknesses, so if you're wanting
to do this yourself, take the brass contact ring to the store with you. The brass ring is a ring with 3 tabs on it. One on the
outside diameter which the button wire solders to. The other two tabs are to situate the ring in the plastic housing. These
2 are bent at 90 degrees to the ring and inserted into slots in the plastic housing. You can work the ring off the plastic
carefully with a stiff paint scraper, a little at a time from each side. Try to keep the ring parallel to the plastic housing, or
you might end up cracking the plastic. I did not make the 3 tabs on my replacement. I just made the solder tab, and used
epoxy to cement the ring to the plastic housing. For now, my horn works like it was supposed to.

I have pix if someone can post them for me.

mike

[IndyMark]

I had the same issue with my 79. I also had one of the copper tabs that ride on the ring broken off. I took apart and old lamp socket and used a piece of the copper bulb contact to replace the broken tab.

[Autoricambi]

I took apart and old lamp socket and used a piece of the copper bulb contact to replace the broken tab.

If there were a Nobel prize for Fiat / Aggie engineering, I think you would be in the running for that repair. Good one!

Ramzi

[minimike]

Ramzi,
thank you for the nomination. If I win, I will gladly accept the award. I hope is 1/2 mill like the other winners get.
mike

[leftfield6]

I have a similar problem on my 83. Looks like one spot on the ring is worn/scored so deeply that the contact that slides on the ring gets caught by the hole and gives me a little false beep of the horn on every steering wheel turn past that spot. I'm taking it this is a no longer available part, huh?

Since the rest of my brass ring looks fine, any thoughts on just dripping a spot of solder to fill up the hole and then using a dremel to smooth it out? Would the solder be of similar hardness to the brass, or would it wear so much faster that I would be right back to the same place in a few thousand miles?

[leftfield6]

Update on this. I came up with a different way of addressing this that I think will work nicely. I used a slightly different version of the repair that minimike did above. Since my horn ring was worn and pitted, I used a small screwdriver to pry the brass ring from the plastic carrier. The worn spot did not go all the way through the brass, so I decided to "flip" the ring, and expose the unworn underside to the sliding contacts. I did solder to fill in some of the worst pitted areas on what would now be the underside, just so there would be no weak areas and the ring would lay flat.

The tab on the outside edge of the ring had to be bent 180º, and I had to break the other two positioning tabs off since they now did not line up correctly. Again, following minimikes lead on this, I epoxied the ring back in place.

I'm letting that epoxy set for a few hours, and then I can reassemble.

[TonyS]

I had the same issue with my 79. I also had one of the copper tabs that ride on the ring broken off. I took apart and old lamp socket and used a piece of the copper bulb contact to replace the broken tab.

IndyMark, I have the same issue. I removed the steering wheel and both pins were gone. Previous owner seems to have put in place a solution that has fallen apart. I’d be interested to understand your solution.
Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Here is a pci of what it looks like.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... FLlST0slNW