Impala horn wire melted!!!!

[pointbreak]

Hey, so I was working on the horn for my car( I know it's not my truck but im not actually a member of any other forums) it's a 66 Impala. Anyways I'm getting her ready for inspection cuz I need that after 3 years of working on her. I'm putting in the new horn and I just hook up power and go to test it when suddenly Smoke!!!! Oh panicked. Pulled the neg cable off the battery and investigate. It smoked the horn wire from the steering wheel to where it joins the main harness. From the looks of it no other wires were damaged. Not even on the column harness. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what could cause that to that extent. Any ideas?

[pointbreak]

Luckily, I pulled all tbebtape off the main harness, and the horn wire is the only one that got damaged....phew!

[mongocanfly]

sounds like it was shorted out somewhere...lucky you didn't melt the harness

[pointbreak]

No doubt! Real lucky. I get that it shorted out. But im having trouble figuring out why. Harness is all new. New plusg, new horn assembly. Just blows my mind lol.

I'm thinking it had to be in the wheel though. Because that's where the damage is centralized. Also everything else was plugged in and I had run the car a zillion times. But it happened as soon as I plugged the new horn in and hooked up the battery

[franken]

New harnesses need to be checked with a low current source of power to avoid this situation. Sounds like the new underdash harness is wired incorrectly. That's my best guess.
The horn button provides a ground to the horn relay, which powers the horn.

[Clyde65]

Where did you get the harness??