Horn Not Working

OOPS... let's try again...

So, can someone please explain to me how a relay functions in a horn circuit?

The horn on my ’92 Pathfinder stopped working the other day. The fuse is good and I can hear the switch in the steering wheel when I press, so I assume I am loosing power somewhere.

I have a bank of relays under the hood - one of which is labelled "Horn Relay". I removed the relay to check things out. It is a 3 pole relay.

I checked for 12v power on all 3 poles of the relay when I pressed the horn - - nothing. Should this tell me something?

So what does this relay do? Does it sound as if I am just not getting power to the relay? If so, I’ll try and check if I have power coming from the horn switch, to see if I can run a new wire.

Any help here would be appreciated. Thanks.

OK, so I just noticed in the "Vehicle Information" on this site that the horn wire in my column is a (-) signal. This might explain why I didn't get a 12v signal when I tested the terminals, right? It might also explain what the relay is doing - reversing the polarity to the horns???

I assume the horns themselves need a 12v signal, since they only have a single conductor running in and they are grounded (I assume) to the vehicle frame.

Is there a way I can test all of this, including the relay?

So, all is well again.

I talked to the Nissan parts people today and they told me what to look for. So I tested everything again, but couldn't get it going. So I pulled the fuse one more time and took a look - - - BURNED!!!

So I replaced the fuse and all is well. I'm not sure what happenned there, because I am pretty positive the fuse was fine when I first checked it. I may have fried it with my testing, who knows. Oh well, whatever it was, it's OK now.

Thanks.