No Horn, Battery Issues

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

2002 Lincoln LS V8 - Recently did the valve cover gaskets along with coils and plugs. Driver side window regulator. Also purchased a new battery. I recently disconnected the positive terminal and connected a multimeter and it was showing a reading that it was drawing 1.36-1.50. I had it set on 20Miliamps (I believe). When I pulled fuse 20 it dropped to .75 and stayed stable..the driver speaker stopped working, and my horn no longer works. My battery was fully charged I let it sit for awhile before checking the drain.

 

[joegr]

I hope that was the 20 A range, not the 20 mA (0.020 Amps) range.
A reading of 1.0 Amps or higher at first is to be expected. You have to connect the meter and then not open or close any doors, trunk, or hood (if any are open, leave them that way), don't press any buttons (including on the remotes), and leave the key off and out. After thirty minutes or so, the car will go into sleep mode and the current will fall. If all is well, it will go to below 50 mA (0.05 Amps). If you mess with anything, the car will probably wake back up. Note that pulling or replacing any fuses may cause this too. The trunk light and interior lights will go off a little while before the whole car goes to sleep.

Are you sure you plugged the speaker back in?

Does the horn work when you hit the panic alarm?

 

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

No doors or anything were opened, no lights came on.
well how do you pull fuses to figure out what the problem is, if pulling them will wake the car back up?


Yes the speaker is pluggged it, if I adjust the radio to just the front left speaker and turn the radio WAY up I can hear it faintly.

The horn does not work when I hit the panic button or press the horn.

 

[joegr]

You have to wait another half hour after pulling or inserting a fuse (it the drain goes up). Note that the fuse pulling method has maybe a 50/50 chance of finding the problem.
You probably need to unplug the speaker and clean the connector and speaker terminals and plug it back in.
You could have failed horns, or a bad horn relay, or a wiring issue. There are other, less likely, possibilities.

 

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

so what is a better way to find the problem?

I just find it very odd that after I did this work then it stopped working, like maybe something is unplugged or a wire is pinched or something odd.

 

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

Also I had the battery charger on the car today and I turned on the radio (key was on) and I heard a louder than normal humming noise. Like i was getting feedback through the charger... is that normal?

 

[1LoudLS]

most battery chargers make "dirty power" for lack of a better term, a lot of stereo systems will pick up noise while a charger is hooked up and on, kinda like a hum or buzz.

 

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

ok well where could I start to figure out the horn issue?... I really believe for some reason that this has something to due with it. When I went to start my vechile yesterday and it seemed like it was completely dead, but when I connected the charger all of my radio stations and heater settings were still saved, but when I turned the key it didn't even click.

 

[joegr]

Does the horn relay click when you press the horn button or hit the panic alarm?
If you bypass the relay, do the horns sound?
Do you have 12V power at the horns with the horn button pressed?

 

[Joshua TheHouse Schreder]

how do you bypass a relay?

 

[gilead.cl19]

if all the relays are the same just swap them around. Is your air bag light on?

 

[joegr]

how do you bypass a relay?

Remove the relay, and jumper the normally open contact set across the relay socket. (This is one of those things that if you have to ask, you probably shouldn't try it. Pick the wrong contacts and you could burn something up.)