Steering wheel horn issue

1999 5.3l Z71 4x4 Xcab.

So my horn stopped working at the steering wheel about a month ago. It worked fine when the alarm was activated. Checked all of the obvious fuses. Decided to pull the steering wheel apart today.

Took the necessary precautions to de-activate the airbag, disco'd the battery and pulled the airbag fuse. The two metal compression tabs on the back of the wheel at 9 and 3 o'clock were surprisingly easy to pop with a flathead screwdriver. Once the bag was free there was enough play to easily disconnect the airbag wiring. Just be careful doing this on cold days as the wiring connectors are plastic and could easily snap.

Once the bag was out of the way it was a simple counterclockwise quarter turn of the horn switch and it was free. Talk about a cheezy looking set-up, btw. Nothing more than two wires run through a thin plastic tube for mounting purposes and continuing through an oversized ball point pen-like spring terminating with the two wires soldered to a flat brass tip. But it's worked for 10 years so what do I know....

Nothing overly obvious wrong, solder/connections appeared to be intact. A quick run through the mounting hole with a Q-tip, a brush on the brass connector end with some emery cloth and re-connected the switch. Plugged the airbag wiring back in and re-mounted the bag. Replaced the bag fuse and hooked up the battery. Horn worked good as new. If only it was that easy replacing the starter a few months ago...

I had exactly the same problem. I followed these steps and got the same result. Thanks for the write up. Saved me a lot of time and money.