BadSax
enjoys 3 martini lunches
Ok, well... first I should say this is more a story about cruise control, but the horn was involved as well. As most of my stories go, this one has slim to no chance of being short so you might want to take this opportunity to get a drink, perhaps something to snack on, make sure you’re in a comfortable chair, etc., you may be in for the long haul...
Now not to let this be an example of how lazy I am, but I’d say almost a year ago I began to have this problem with my cruise control intermittently not working. As it turns out I found out shortly after the cruise stopped working all together that the horn didn’t work either. Now out of severe desperation caused by the loss of my dearly beloved cruise control, I began playing with the steering wheel. I went on the assumption that the lack of functional cruise control and the loss of my horn where caused by the same problem. After a few minutes of fooling around with the wheel, I found out that if the wheel was tilted all the way up (I drive with it tiled all the way down) the horn would work. I hit the road to test my previously formulated hypothesis and as I had suspected the cruise control engaged with out incident. This was of course contingent upon my having the wheel tilted all the way up.
Now at this point, I have to admit that apathy won me over. I lived with my poorly circumvented problem from that point on until a few days ago. At this moment I’d like to backtrack just a little (in an effort to make the time line as confusing as possible) to about a week ago, this is when the cruise and horn stopped working all together. No matter how I tilted the steering wheel, I had no cruise. This of course spurned me into quick (I use the term loosely) and decisive action. I found a flashlight and a very long screwdriver and popped up the little panel where the piano keys for the message center are. Having a sneaking suspicion that I was the innocent victim of a poor wiring connection, I watched the wiring harness move and flex as I tiled the wheel up and down. After a few minuets, I carefully inserted my delicate instrument (long screwdriver) and poked and prodded the connection point of the wiring harness in question. This action would of course come back to bite me in the ass later. However at the time, this restrained almost surgical in nature prodding of the harness seemed to work. The horn and more importantly the cruise control came back to life. No matter what position the wheel was tilted, everything worked.
My euphoria and elation of the successful resolution of my predicament lasted about a day. At which point I once again had no horn and no cruise. This may seem like a bit of a digression from my story, but I’ll tie it in, maybe. A few days later I get a call in the morning from John Boyle (1Iced8) and as fait would have it, I wind up being trapped in Rhode Island for ten hours with nothing to do, so I take a little swing across Connecticut and meet John for dinner. Which is a whole other story... John is however doing well, and sends his greetings to everyone, as he is apparently too damn lazy to come to the board and post himself. Ok, so where was I... oh yes, after eating I take off back to that little suburb of NYC, Rhode Island. By the time I make it back to the Cape from RI it’s around 2:30 in the morning.
Did I mention that I was sick? Well, I was by the way, not feeling well at all, which only served to compound how tired I already was after driving a few hundred miles in the middle of the night. Now somehow the thought of having to drive my car half an hour back to my apartment without cruise control seemed virtually impossible. From this overwhelming feeling of impending vehicular doom came some sort of ambition. I pulled my car into the garage at work and went to work. I pulled the bottom of the driver’s side dash apart (why can’t they use the same size screws?) and got up close and personal with the evil wiring harness. The problem was now clear as day, or at least as clear as I could make the florescent lit garage. One of the wires had actually broken off right after the plastic connector. Well at this point, I couldn’t let this one small wire beat me. I managed to wiggle the harness free of its connection to the steering column and unplug the harness. This freed up some maneuvering space, but that still didn’t bring me any closer to a possible solution. The time... 3:20 in the morning... my state of mind: borderline at best.
I knew I had to get the wire back in there, I had to make it one with the harness again, bring it back to it’s family, back home. Then the epiphany... I managed to carefully pop the metal pin that the wire had been crimped to out the harness. All it took was balancing the tiny harness connector against the dashboard with a small screwdriver placed circumspectly against my forehead and then using a test light to pry back the plastic tab that held the metal pin in place with one hand while using the other hand to manipulate another even smaller screwdriver to push the metal pin out the harness. So as I was saying, it was just a walk in the park. The only think that might have made the job easier would have been to grow a third arm, but I was on a mission and couldn’t wait around for evolution to lend me a helping hand (one attached to an arm of course).
Now that I had removed the pin, I proceeded to remove my badly contorted carcass out of the car and then headed over to the workbench. There I warily pried open the little crimped part of the pin and removed the old wire. I then striped back a little more of the broken wire and re-crimped it back to its metal pin. I Cautiously reinserted the pin and plugged the harness back together. Now the moment of truth... I reach up and press the center of the steering wheel. With a mighty electric enthusiasm the horn lets out a powerful blast. I of course forgot that I was in a closed steel garage and the horn was so loud in that enclosed space that even through I was expecting the noise (since I was pressing the horn) it still managed to startle me enough that I hit my head on the steering column. After recovering from my self-inflicted concussion, I righted myself in the seat and proceeded to tap the horn with the wheel in various tilt positions. The horn seemed to work just fine, the harness didn’t seem to move much less become stressed as long as I didn’t reattach it to the steering column.
Out of the garage and down the street we (the car and I) went. Test the cruise, works beautifully. Tap the horn a few more times, everything seems to be working perfectly. Back to the garage to return the bottom of my dashboard to its external esthetic splendor and we’re off for home at only 4:30 in the morning.
The moral of the story is that I can now beep my horn at people when they cut me off. I can beep my horn at people when I cut them off. But most importantly, I can beep my horn while allowing the car to maintain its speed without my intervention. Which is a wonderful thing... a wonderful thing...
Ok, so I don’t think that qualifies as a “moral” either...
-Joe
Now not to let this be an example of how lazy I am, but I’d say almost a year ago I began to have this problem with my cruise control intermittently not working. As it turns out I found out shortly after the cruise stopped working all together that the horn didn’t work either. Now out of severe desperation caused by the loss of my dearly beloved cruise control, I began playing with the steering wheel. I went on the assumption that the lack of functional cruise control and the loss of my horn where caused by the same problem. After a few minutes of fooling around with the wheel, I found out that if the wheel was tilted all the way up (I drive with it tiled all the way down) the horn would work. I hit the road to test my previously formulated hypothesis and as I had suspected the cruise control engaged with out incident. This was of course contingent upon my having the wheel tilted all the way up.
Now at this point, I have to admit that apathy won me over. I lived with my poorly circumvented problem from that point on until a few days ago. At this moment I’d like to backtrack just a little (in an effort to make the time line as confusing as possible) to about a week ago, this is when the cruise and horn stopped working all together. No matter how I tilted the steering wheel, I had no cruise. This of course spurned me into quick (I use the term loosely) and decisive action. I found a flashlight and a very long screwdriver and popped up the little panel where the piano keys for the message center are. Having a sneaking suspicion that I was the innocent victim of a poor wiring connection, I watched the wiring harness move and flex as I tiled the wheel up and down. After a few minuets, I carefully inserted my delicate instrument (long screwdriver) and poked and prodded the connection point of the wiring harness in question. This action would of course come back to bite me in the ass later. However at the time, this restrained almost surgical in nature prodding of the harness seemed to work. The horn and more importantly the cruise control came back to life. No matter what position the wheel was tilted, everything worked.
My euphoria and elation of the successful resolution of my predicament lasted about a day. At which point I once again had no horn and no cruise. This may seem like a bit of a digression from my story, but I’ll tie it in, maybe. A few days later I get a call in the morning from John Boyle (1Iced8) and as fait would have it, I wind up being trapped in Rhode Island for ten hours with nothing to do, so I take a little swing across Connecticut and meet John for dinner. Which is a whole other story... John is however doing well, and sends his greetings to everyone, as he is apparently too damn lazy to come to the board and post himself. Ok, so where was I... oh yes, after eating I take off back to that little suburb of NYC, Rhode Island. By the time I make it back to the Cape from RI it’s around 2:30 in the morning.
Did I mention that I was sick? Well, I was by the way, not feeling well at all, which only served to compound how tired I already was after driving a few hundred miles in the middle of the night. Now somehow the thought of having to drive my car half an hour back to my apartment without cruise control seemed virtually impossible. From this overwhelming feeling of impending vehicular doom came some sort of ambition. I pulled my car into the garage at work and went to work. I pulled the bottom of the driver’s side dash apart (why can’t they use the same size screws?) and got up close and personal with the evil wiring harness. The problem was now clear as day, or at least as clear as I could make the florescent lit garage. One of the wires had actually broken off right after the plastic connector. Well at this point, I couldn’t let this one small wire beat me. I managed to wiggle the harness free of its connection to the steering column and unplug the harness. This freed up some maneuvering space, but that still didn’t bring me any closer to a possible solution. The time... 3:20 in the morning... my state of mind: borderline at best.
I knew I had to get the wire back in there, I had to make it one with the harness again, bring it back to it’s family, back home. Then the epiphany... I managed to carefully pop the metal pin that the wire had been crimped to out the harness. All it took was balancing the tiny harness connector against the dashboard with a small screwdriver placed circumspectly against my forehead and then using a test light to pry back the plastic tab that held the metal pin in place with one hand while using the other hand to manipulate another even smaller screwdriver to push the metal pin out the harness. So as I was saying, it was just a walk in the park. The only think that might have made the job easier would have been to grow a third arm, but I was on a mission and couldn’t wait around for evolution to lend me a helping hand (one attached to an arm of course).
Now that I had removed the pin, I proceeded to remove my badly contorted carcass out of the car and then headed over to the workbench. There I warily pried open the little crimped part of the pin and removed the old wire. I then striped back a little more of the broken wire and re-crimped it back to its metal pin. I Cautiously reinserted the pin and plugged the harness back together. Now the moment of truth... I reach up and press the center of the steering wheel. With a mighty electric enthusiasm the horn lets out a powerful blast. I of course forgot that I was in a closed steel garage and the horn was so loud in that enclosed space that even through I was expecting the noise (since I was pressing the horn) it still managed to startle me enough that I hit my head on the steering column. After recovering from my self-inflicted concussion, I righted myself in the seat and proceeded to tap the horn with the wheel in various tilt positions. The horn seemed to work just fine, the harness didn’t seem to move much less become stressed as long as I didn’t reattach it to the steering column.
Out of the garage and down the street we (the car and I) went. Test the cruise, works beautifully. Tap the horn a few more times, everything seems to be working perfectly. Back to the garage to return the bottom of my dashboard to its external esthetic splendor and we’re off for home at only 4:30 in the morning.
The moral of the story is that I can now beep my horn at people when they cut me off. I can beep my horn at people when I cut them off. But most importantly, I can beep my horn while allowing the car to maintain its speed without my intervention. Which is a wonderful thing... a wonderful thing...
Ok, so I don’t think that qualifies as a “moral” either...
-Joe
