Intended to clean up the old original horn, mount it up on the outside of the inner fender way up front, and install a voltage reducer to keep the characteristic voice of the horn. When I pulled the cover off for cleaning and painting, looky what I found... I haven't got a clue what I'm looking at...doesn't appear to be any metalic part on the inside of the tube to solder the wire to, yet it appears to have a bit of a glob of solder-like stuff on the wire. Inside the tube appears to be something the consistancy of a combination of old ear wax and tar that's been chewed on for a couple of hours. Most likely something our early defense department acquired from the Roswell crash site and never quite figured out what it was, so they sold it to GM to put in their horns. #1...What am I looking at here? #2...How do I go about fixin' it? #3...How come there ain't any printed circuit boards inside this horn? #4...How many 19 hour days can you work in a row before your eyelids turn inside out?
#1...That is what is left of a 60 year old capacitor. #2...You don't, although I guess you could find a capacitor from a 59 year old horn and try it #3...PC boards hadn't been invented yet. #4...Depends on how much you like (or dislike) your work.
A Bad Cap Harry! I'm probably not much help but if you can find some one with one of those horns that has the markings on the capacitor or a tech data source that lists any of the internal part numbers you might be able to go to a radio shack or electronic parts store and by a new cap but you will need to know what microfarad (as in 50mf) rating that was originall installed. Most old radio restorers replace the paper and wax capacitors with newer modern ones.
Good questions I can only offer guesses for you. From what little I can find, the cap is there to reduce arcing on the contacts. If you cannot find the exact specs, a capacitor that is between .25ufd and 1ufd and rated 450V-1000V "should" work. Radio shack *may* have something that will work, but if you have a REAL electronics store nearby, I would check there. Bob
Horn Capacitor I'd think any old ignition capacitor will work , won't fit in that space tho' , you'll have to mount it externally . Remember to use a Burnishing file on those points ! .
Fwiw ; Very few horns ever came with capacitors so you *could* try just by passing that and see how it works after you've cleaned & adjusted the contact points , remembering to have the horn firmly clamped in a heavy vice before attenpting adjustment . Maybe , because your horn was made during the " Korean Conflict " (A.K.A. War) the points were made of crappy materiel and the Cap. is necessary .
Capacitors I would check out Allied Electronics fora selection of Caps and well just about anything else you may ever need to wire pretty much anything. http://www.alliedelec.com/ http://www.alliedelec.com/search/searchresults.aspx?N=4294887054 You can even call thier tech support and they could help find what you are looking for. I have called them for stuff they do not carry or did not have in stock and they gave me a contact at the manufacurer in the past. Bill
