Yes your quite right I apologise…
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Dear Antony,
We are all quite friendly here, but at some point, you’ll either have to get a manual, or get a life. The truth is, Peter told you roughly how the horn worked and resisted the the oo-err matron response to a fellow Brit despite himself. As a general rule, you can only hit the nuclear button once, so please don’t make that your opening shot. (Peter’s opening shot was to actually answer your question.)
Good luck trying to ban or block him - he used to be one of the admins who ran this site and is one of the guys who writes the manuals, adds the explanatory notes and then answers your questions oh so patiently despite the fact you could have just used the website search function or looked up the answer for yourself.
It would be easier to have just asked:- “Peter, are you from the Ministry of Silly Noses?”. For the record, the two documents you need are The Repair and Operations Manual (“ROM”) containing what Jaguar think are the right instructions for assembling and disassembling your car and the Parts Manual, which contains the exploded diagrams of the car with their respective parts numbers. A typical Haynes manual is a mix of the two and a good complement for the others.
For this, pretty much any Haynes manual for a British car of the 1960s or 70s will have the same (right) answer:- the steering column just grounds an ignition fed relay winding. This makes the relay supply 12v to the horns, which ground to the chassis.
Please don’t sulk. Everyone loves Peter. His most fervant followers have their cars fitted with the BD9435 Jaguar Prayer Mat with inbuild compass which automatically orients towards Gaithersburg so we can wail our devotions five times a day…
kind regards
Marek
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I suspect that the O.P. is unaware of the typical drift of J-L threads. And, while I wouldn’t want to bury Peter I can’t quite praise him either. To wit:
I fail to see the humour in the above passage, and in fact suffered confusion whilst reading it. It seems the point being made is that a wide range of topics is typically discussed at the fictional establishment. But wait! Barthian philosophy is in fact the examination of Pauline eschatology so isn’t the discussion focused on a quite narrow subject with the third author circling back to the first? By the time I recalled who in Hell these blokes were and what they actually wrote, and that all three treatises were related and not wide-ranging, my head became quite Søren. Glad I decided to get my feelings out!
edit: Or did you mean John Barth? If so, never mind.
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The O.P. is also unaware that roughly the same group of people are on more than one Jaguar forum, so he’ll take his questions elsewhere and… “Oh no, it’s YOU again!”. He’ll sadly troll himself into a corner.
At this point, it is sensible to realise that not everyone wants the same thing at the same time as each other from J-L:-
some people ask questions,
some people answer questions,
some people want a bit of entertainment,
some want a rant,
some people are genuinely mentally unwell,
some people don’t speak english as a first language,
some people don’t speak english at all,
the same words don’t mean the same things to everyone.
It’s a miracle it works as well as it does.
kind regards
Marek
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Dear Anthony
You asked a question
You immediately received helpful advice [sic] and a correct answer from myself and others to solve your problem and learn about your car
You refused to accept what I and others told you and cited a diagram you interpreted wrongly. Dangerously wrongly. Why ask for ‘advise’ and then ignore it?
We could have left you to burn your dashboard innards and conceivably your entire car but we did not. We told you again a safe view of how to repair your horn
I gave you the rock solid correct answer and explained the diagram error as nobody else had done so up to that point. I also i a roundabout way encouraged you to buy the manuals for your new purchase of the 1978 VDP which is a complex car for a new owner.
Everything after that was for my pleasure, not yours and I’m glad it worked for me because you had annoyed me by arguing about what you’d been advised and I when I read it I was grinding my teeth. By the time I’d written my little joke I was smiling and in a much better mood with Messrs Fry and Laurie to amuse me.
I was channeling my inner Fry when writing the spark plug lines, which were simultaneously pure Python in tone, yet technically correct because Karl Barth was influenced by Kierkegaard, as our late brother Andrew Waugh would attest. The whole idea of that line was not to be accurate (which it HAD to be for my self-respect) but to be instantly ridiculous in and of itself, as a topic of conversation with spark plugs. My very good friend, co-author, and Professor Emeritus Bob Wilkinson clearly felt the plugs should have been discussing something he could understand, like the physiology of striated sarcomeres, or Corvair rear suspension, but if we limit ourselves to reading what we already know, where’s the learning?
I used to worry (only slightly, mind) about being perceived as a pompous know-all fond of his own words. Now that I know this to be the case it is quite liberating :-). For me it works so long as I give the value first. No piss-taking until AFTER the answers are given. You paid me nothing for my answer and follow-up correction, but I reserve the right (after being argued with FFS!) to poke gentle fun at you. If that strikes you as too high a price, feel free to reject the advice and burn your car.
And please don’t write me any more offensive private messages. I was shocked to realise I was dealing with a 69 year-old. I had you down as 19 going on 12.
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…you rang?
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And you picked up😹…
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I’m not sure there is much for you to apologise for, other than for being overly sensitive. The Brits all laugh at the Americans because they can’t spell “humour”; the Americans politely quote Mark Twain back at us. Then they point out (correctly, I have to say) that 80% of “our” Jags were exported there and that the wealth of knowledge and expertise is four times as great on their side of the pond than there ever was on ours.
If you take a look at other car forums, they tend to be a lot more macho, aggressive and abusive than this one, usually without the knowledge base, or even the inclination to actually help answer the question. Add to that a bit of pride and you’d think there is nothing worse than a Jaguar owner. Well, there is - an Aston Martin or (gulp!) a Ferrari owner. The last time I was dragged out to Goodwood, they had a line of beautiful red Ferraris with the owners desperately wanting to be loved. In amongst them was a guy with a spotless blue Morris Marina. His car was absolutely gorgeous, but none of the red car owners would talk to him and they couldn’t understand why everyone else crowded around. It’s a broad church and you’re as welcome here as Peter.
For the record, none of us here understand Peter’s Nietsche any better than Kevin Klien did (A Fish called Wanda), but we do know how the cars work and we don’t call either of you stupid.
The reason a relay is used for the horns is that they pull a lot of current - much more than the headlights, when they sound. Operating them through the steering column would probably melt something. Operating just a tiny relay winding through the horn push button or through the indicator stalk is a safe way to control that large current. The ROM contains the wiring diagram. Lucas used standard wiring colours (enter “Lucas wiring colours” into the search function). You can then use an Avo-meter to work out where you have and haven’t the right connection in the circuit. On a balance of probabilities, the problems always manifest first at the moving parts, followed by corroded connectors, followed by high current switches, the finally the actual component parts and wiring themselves.
kind regards
Marek
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Even better, enter BS-AU7 into Google and print out the nicest looking table.
Search the forum or manual for the horn relay location. Measure there with a voltmeter or test lamp.
Thank you very much… Anthony
Hi all,
Aren’t hooters more of an issue in the US?(and not the UK). 
On the technical side Peter is absolutely right, that’s the logic in all Jaguars with a steering wheel centre horn push button. In the early ones (MKIV/MKV/MKVII) you don’t even need an ignition key, the horn circuit is always live (which is a bummer in the MKV DHC as if you tilt the driver’s seat back to let a passenger enter the back seat the horn will be very loud).
If you have a car as complex and wonderful as the Series 2 Daimler Double Six Vanden Plas Saloon is, you would be making your life much easier getting the (very inexpensive) Spare parts book and factory Repair and Service Operation Manual.
Just my 2 euro cents.
Cheers!
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Amen!
(a miracle, it’s a miracle)
Hi Pete,
Oh, you do? Me too! LOL!
Cheers!
Aahhh, speak of the devil. 
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Hey!
I resent that comment. 
(But admit that MOST Ferrari owners tend to be like that)
There’s even one of those DD6’s in Finland that was turned into a (rather nice looking) Daytona Spider replica in the UK (Autokraft?).
Cheers!
**
It would be close to lunacy, Marek. If the original route is insulated, the system will work as intended - and if there is a short, arbitrary hooting, something will certainly melt down. And as the set-up is designed for mA - higher currents would, as you say, be counterproductive…
Certainly, if the internal route is to be bypassed; the much thinner wire required for relay control would be more manageable. In short; omitting the horn relay is…hm…a dead end…
Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
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Agree, not all. I worked on a case with an engineer as a consultant, His name was
Ferrari. We met at a job site. SOG, he brought his new toy, a Ferrari!! Proud, yet abashed, he had to disconnect the battery It had a parasitic drain he could not find. So, we did the riving part in my F150!!!
Al is a very nice guy… Smart, as well…
Carl .
How about not only
a Jaguar owner but also a Aston Martin and Ferrari owner. It would have hurt my feelings if I had any…
**
The internal connection in the shaft is brass rods, Anthony…
Frank
xj6 85 Sov Europe (UK/NZ)
**
Hi,
Well I guess two out of three is bad enough! 
Cheers!