Hi everyone,
I've been struggling with a problem on my roommate's newly purchased 2006 Suzuki Swift for a few days now. I have electrical engineering experience but am having trouble understanding what is going on with this car as the repair manual schematics don't seem to match the car and I have no reference car to see how the system should normally work. The problem is the horn button is not triggering the horn but the horn itself, which is near the rad on the front of the car, works if I put a voltage across it. The car was recently purchased and we need to fix the horn to pass safety. I'm not sure if I'm having a combination of two problems or just one.
First of all there is a HORN/REAR FOG fuse in the dash fuse/junction box as well as a HORN fuse in the engine junction box. There is power (+12v) going from the horn fuse in the dash to a connector in the steering enclosure (in the same enclosure as the ignition, turn signals and headlight controls) via an orange wire. On the same connector there are two green wires tied together. The other side of the connector has 1 red and 1 black. Through the connector, the orange goes to red and the two green go to black. The red and black wires seem like they go through the steering column to the two horn buttons on the steering wheel. However, the red side of the button has no voltage and no connectivity to the red on the connector in the steering enclosure. The black is connected to ground. Thinking the horn button was a straight through switch that simply connects red to black when pushed (and testing this theory by with the ohm meter and getting 0 ohms when pushed), I shorted red to black on the connector in the steering enclosure and it blew the HORN/REAR FOG fuse in the dash junction box. This makes me wonder if there was already a short somewhere and someone messed around and burnt the red wire that goes through the steering column/wheel.
Furthermore, when testing the wires on the physical horn near the rad (1 black and 1 red), there is a constant +12v on the red wire, whether the button is pushed or not, and the black wire doesn't seem to have a connection to ground. My first question is, is this normal? Would the horn relay be on the black side of the horn? That is the only way I can make sense of these readings.
My second question is where is the horn relay on this car? It is not listed on the engine junction box and the dash junction box lists none of the relays and as I said, the service manual I got from Suzuki's web site is not making sense. None of the connectors, wire colours, or even fuse locations seem to line up with what I am seeing in the car. For example, the manual says the horn and hazards are on the same fuse whereas the sticker on the fuse box in the car lists HORN/REAR FOG.
If someone could give me a diagram or even verbally describe the circuit it would also be much appreciated.
I would think it would go dash junction/fuse, to button, to horn relay (trigger side), to ground. Then separate circuit from engine junction, to horn relay, to horn to ground.
But I don't know if stuff is all shorted and broken or if the horn circuit actually goes engine junction, to horn, to horn relay, to ground.
I'll put some pictures up as reference to what I'm talking about.