By accident when we were checking out the turnsignal switch(all corroded) my friend put the volt meter on the the steering wheel shaft...It was HOT with ignition on...is that normal? The hvy dk. brown wire attached to the column is HOT.
Neither of us have ever encountered that but were used to Fords and Chevys.
Want to know if I have a problem or not???
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This can explain the strange VW horn wiring far better than I. The turn signal is covered in this article as well.
As far as I know (and what the hell do I know - I'm just another "old guy"!) the steering column is "hot" while the steering shaft ( inside of the column) is grounded.
So.....what you found is 'normal' - or at least as normal as a VW ever seemed to be.
Go here, scroll down about 2/3'rds of the page and read about how the horn system works, along with the infamous VW "hot" steering column:
Your column is reverse wired.. hot should go to one to the two horn terminals and the other terminal is a ground wire wired to the horn button..always best to use a relay too.
Learn something new everyday
. It surprised me when I found the column "hot", thought something was wrong!.
Art, thanks for the great link to the article about horns/columns...and thanks to Alan and Gordon also.
What a relief to know that it is normal and I do not have a major electrical problem in the column...had visions of tooling down the road with smoke and flame starting to pour out of the column...LOL.
Yeah, I went for YEARS with mine jury-rig-wired just to get a horn to work, but I had a loop of wire at the bottom of the steering shaft , across the rag-coupler and looped around the shaft to allow steering wheel movement and it fatigued and frayed every year, all because I had a defective top-column bearing and didn't know how the column really worked (but at least I had something that worked, PITA that it was).
Finally, I got around to making it all right this past Spring and then it was, like, WTF? THAT is how this is supposed to work? Who the heck thought THAT up??
It took a bit of fabricating (because I originally installed everything like it was an American car - that was a mistake because I didn't understand it) but I finally got everything right and now it's "just like factory".....whatever THAT means.
Maybe I won't be under there this coming Spring repairing it again.......
It sure threw me and a friend a loop...we're used to American cars...lol
It makes sense to me that the column is "hot" If the ignition is on, 12v goes to the horn, then the horn ground is attached to the center of the column. All you are doing is grounding that lead to the outside of the column to complete the circuit. You'll measure 12v, but that is misleading as the current won't flow without a good ground. Really you are just reading potential voltage through the horn. It has been said above, but I agree it is a good idea to use a horn relay, especially for those of us with dual or loud(hi-current) horns.
Found out why the horns didn't work...using Art's link, the horn wire through the column was just hanging loose. It had corroded off the electrical connector where it grounds to the steering box. Cleaned it up, installed a new connector...checked to make sure the horn relay connections were all good, then tried it...got a nice little BEEP,BEEP!
