Does anyone know why when I beep the horn it kills my engine? The horn doesn't seem to work either. Thanks
Does anyone know why when I beep the horn it kills my engine? The horn doesn't seem to work either. Thanks
wal,
We are waiting for don-ohio to answer this very question, but adding the make and model of your ped may help. There is more than one way to wire them.
Ron
Hi,Wal and Ron! I'm still searching for my MOTOMARINA manual.Sorry! I am very curious about this phenomena myself. Since I've been working 12hr. shifts and I have 3 more shifts to work over 3 days,it might take me a while to sort it out.Also,every hour I've been off and not sleeping I've been on one or the other of the 2 Motomarinas,when weather wasn't stormy.I get home at 7:00 in the evening and the urge to go peddin' hits me! I can't help myself! I've probably ridden 200 total miles in the last 5 days or so. See ya!
Hey Ron, Thanks for bring that fact up. My ped is a a ''78 puch maxi. Its got 4k on it but runs great after giving it lots of TLC...can you believe the blinker system batterys still hold a modest charge after all these years!
I thought that there must be a dead short in the horn. It clicks a little. I took it apart and everything was clean and shiney inside so I rivited back together but it still just clicks and kills the motor.
Hey Ron, when you said that they are wired different it got me to thinking that I never switched the position ot the two wires on the horn...I just did and the horn works(sorta) and the engine didn't die! I've been trying to keep everything as I found it so I never thought to experiment with the wireing. I guess I was shorting out the elec system to ground with a push of the button.Thanks for your reply.
thanks , Wal
wal,
Glad to help, although I have no idea how??
Ron
I'm sorry, but that's just a funny image :) Maybe because my 2000 Tomos horn
sounds like the Aflac duck, and at speed, the motor is louder than the horn.
if your horn kills the moped, something's wrong w/ wiring. does your kill switch work? my first guess would be that somehow your horn has become your kill switch.
the button you are pushing is probally you kill switch
This is something I've noticed on my 78 Motobecane... My horn is activated if pressed, but it says "IGNITION OFF" with an arrow pointing to the left so if I twist the horn button left it should turn off, though I've never tried this. Any one else have any experience with this?
Sure, if the switch is wired correctly, when you turn off the ignition (the reccomended way to stop the engine), the horn will sound until the engine stops. Sounds a lot like you are strangling a duck. If you attempt to re-start with the switch off, the horn will sound to let you know. Stopping the motor with the decompressor will eventually burn and/or crud up the valve.
Ron
Holy crap! I've been cutting my engine with the decompressor forever!
That sucks. The guy who sold it to me tokd me that was the way to do it...
I am just quoting the owners manual, there is a link to one under resources.
Ron
Hi,Guys! I still haven't had the time to troubleshoot mine.But there was no problem until the horn button lost it's `springing back' tension.I have to conclude it's just a defective horn button until proven otherwise.I don't like running around without a horn in southern Ohio.The other day a deer jumped right inthe road about a hundred yards ahead,but when I hit my horn it jumped out of the way like it had been stung by a bee! So I need my horn and if I get off these 12 hr. shifts I'll find out the problem,I think. BYE!
This may sound weird but here goes. I never tore a horn apart but I assume that they run like a speaker. Voltage passed thru a coil to produce the sound. The coil is the wrapping of wire in front of a magnet usually. Coils primarily run off of induction.
Induction is "almost" like resistance in this case. It shouldn't matter which way you wire the horn up if it were brand new. Think of it as wiring up a speaker. If you get it backwards the speaker will "pull in" instead of "push out". You can blow them up if running amplifiers this way. Now, the "probable" reason why it was killing your engine one way and not the other. The voltage had a quicker path to ground when wired before you reversed the leads to it thru the coil. The coil may be going bad in the horn or a section of it may be touching ground. When you reversed the leads you got more of a magnetic field, the horn worked, which means higher resistance, and less of a chance for the voltage to simple go to ground.
It is very had to explain this in text.
Nick
Nick,
Excelent theory. Good conclusion. Wrong ides of how a horn works but I think your conclusion is ok anyway.
Horns are actually just vibrators. A dc electromagnet attracts a diaphragm and in doing so, opens an electrical contact which removes power from the magnet, allowing the diaphragm to return and close the contacts. This repeats until you get off the horn button.
I am not aware of any polarity restrictions on these horns unless one connection is common to ground, which is not unusual. My guess here is that one side of the horn was grounded, either on purpose or accidentally and this is why reversing the wires cured the horn problem.
This still does not answer the question, "What the h*** has the horn got to do with the ignition?" as most peds use a completely separate alternator coil for ignition.
Back to horns for a moment. Because they depend on a set of contacts (like ignition points) to operate, they often quit working because the points corrode and stop conducting or stick together, especially when not used for a while.
On most horns, there is an adjustment screw, sometimes in the middle of the diaphragm and sometimes somewhere on the back of the horn. Look for a small screw, like a set screw, with a lock nut on it. If you loosen the lock nut and turn the screw, the point gap/orientation changes and the horn will often start to work again. Then the arcing at the points will clean them off. You then have to re-adjust the screw for the loudest noise. This adjustment is also used to correct the sound off a horn which has become weak from eroding contacts.
Ron
Hi,Ron! I was wrong in thinking i had a MOTOMARINA Shop manual.All I had was a bunch of engine diagrams.I got mixed up because of thinking of the MOTOBECANE shop manual.So now I'll order a MOTOMARINA manual as soon as I can,and THEN MAYBE I'll find out about why my motor woudn't start with the horn hooked up.BYE!
Want to post in this forum? We'd love to have you join the discussion, but first: