This weekend I spent nearly three hours tracking the infamous honk the horn and the rear wiper cycles on a 92 245. Assuming this to be the usual ground fault in the column, I went in there first. Cleaned and reseated everything including the stalk switch. Replaced a couple of questionable wires, no go. I had replaced the single horn with duals, checked for coil grounds, nothing doing. Spent some time trying to find anything weird with a meter, nothing. Replaced the stalk switch with another--no go. I decided to check the dummy relay under the dead pedal. I can't remember for sure, but I think 92s come with intermittent rear wiper standard--something I know many of us like to add to the earlier cars, I know I do. Regardless, this one had the yellow relay and it was not plugged in well. Yet another AHA moment, but cleaning the plug and relay did nothing. I hit the intermittent switch and the wiper did a half sweep and stopped. Hitting the horn with the switch off completed the single cycle. Hitting the horn with the switch left on also completed the cycle, but I thought I heard the relay make a funny noise. The tail gate harnesses have been done, but the half cycle had me very curious so I checked everything back there. That was a red herring. No problems in the tailgate, headliner, harnesses, wiper motor--all just fine. Changed the relay--problem solved.

I've never heard of the intermittent relay causing this fault, so thought I'd post. Examination of the relay showed nothing obviously wrong like a fried component, but such things are not always visible. A strange one for certain!

DS