The horn on my /50 was not operating and after confirming the horn works, I took apart the switch. Yet another hack job from a previous owner. Only two of 5 wires connected (only lights) and all sorts of tape and a one inch extension splice fell out. I took apart the switch, cleaned it up and put it all back together (surgical precision required) and am about to rewire. My question is if there is a diagram showing which wires attach to each stud? There are five studs (screws) and one appears to be brass. Does it belong somewhere specific? Other than being a precision exercise, it does not seem hard to repair this switch, but it seems in all the forums people have had little luck refurbishing this switch. Am I missing something? should I just buy a new one?
Were you successful with your wiring search for the switch? I am unable to find the same info to verify this 1971 r75/5 is correct.
My question is if there is a diagram showing which wires attach to each stud? There are five studs (screws) and one appears to be brass.
No. There is the overall schematic showing how the power flows, then you use a multi-meter to determine which contacts make that happen and wire it accordingly.
In my experience the wire, not the switch contacts, is the big hold-up. The OEM wire is physically about 2X the conductor size it needs to be. The metric wire seems to be about 14AWG. You could effectively wire your switch with 18AWG wire and get the job done just as reliably. Why ? Because the horn has intermittent use. No one lays on the horn button for 2 hours. And the lights, especially if you convert your HL bulb over to LED, will work reliably on 18AWG, which is half the physical diameter.
The rules of wiring are...
• Wire is sized by current, not voltage.
• Every second wire size doubles/halves the physical conductor size.
It's the physical size of the wire and the difficulty of routing fat wires in the small space of the button that is the true issue. Try that and see if you don't get some relief.
Owning an old Airhead is easy.
Keeping an old Airhead running great is the true test.
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