With inspection coming, and frustrated by its failure since I bought it, I attacked my non-working horn. Had not had a reliable horn. Kept chasing it down the wiring paths but it's confusing, as it requires GROUND to sound, not charge.

Long story short, changing out the rotary coupler -- clock spring -- spiral cassette fixed it.

Bought a new/used one off of Ebay for $30.

Extremely easy fix, getting the steering wheel off wasn't easy for me until I realized rocking it side-to-side was better than brute yanking.

A little tough getting everything calibrated putting it all back, but that's always the way. Follow where the cables go down the back of the steering wheel to fit it all back!!!!! Snap a pic of the path before pulling the steering wheel all the way off.

Am just putting this up so others who are frustrated can get some info.

I knew I was on the right path when I was tightening back the locking nut on the wheel -- I had not yet connected the buttons back up -- and the horn went off. YESSSS!!!! Loosened the nut a bit until there was no horn sound and got the horn buttons connected before tightening the center nut again.

I have a 97 Disco 1 and it looked like no one had been in there.

HONK HONK! Time to give my middle finger a rest!

Steering wheel removal is RAVE chapter 57, more info if you search for "horn" -- shows how to loosen steering wheel pad (two T27 Torx behind wheel) and how to remove assemblies inside wheel.

 

It is great when folks contribute info like this. While the horn is not generally a 'typical' D1 issue, you never know what people will encounter.

Keep it rolling Pidge!

 

It's threads like this one that make this forum great.