[ST] Air horn installation information

["The Flowers" <wflowers@xxxxxxx>]

Since there does appear to be some interest in my air horn installation,
I'll do my best to describe it.  They say a picture is worth 1,000 words but
last week my wife grabbed my children and fled the country, taking all our
cameras as well.  I was left with the two dogs and an empty house.  I'll
have to wait until they return from their vacation to take any shots.
(Yeah, it is just a vacation.  What?  You thought she had kidnapped
them?!?!)

The horn I installed is manufactured by Fiamm and sold in Pep Boys as
"Blazer Horn" model BH301C.  It included a rather compact compressor, a horn
relay and two trumpets: the short one for the low tone and the long one the
high tone.  The kit did NOT include the required electrical hookups, wire,
in-line fuse, etc. nor any required bracketry.

When it came to the bracketry I was on my own.

The first thing I did was take off the left body panel.  After looking there
for a bit I put it back on.  You can skip this step if you choose.

Then I got smarter (it is all relative) and took off the right body panel.
Now we're getting somewhere!  I sat down on my shop stool to study the
situation.  (You can choose to skip sitting and studying if you want and
just follow along with these notes.)

At about this point I finally came up with a plan of action.  I'd install
the horn relay to the OEM horn mount thus avoiding having to extend the horn
wires.  It did mean though that I'd have to run power from the battery to
the relay and back to the compressor.

Oh, right!  The compressor.  Where to put that?

It turns out that it will fit neatly in the seat cowling on the right side,
opposite the coolant reservoir.  This is not the ideal location for it
because you end up with about 3 feet (a bit less than a meter) of airline
from the compressor to the horns.  Ideally you want to keep that run as
short as possible.  But it works and sure sounds loud to me and my riding
buddies!

At about this point I realized that the stores would be closing in 30
minutes so off I ran to Lowes to get something, anything(!), with which to
fashion a bracket suitable to hold the horns in place.  I found they sold
14GA metal strapping 1-3/8" wide with 3/8" holes spaced every 3/4" down the
length.  Perfect!

I wish I could describe the brackets I hacked (literally) out of the metal
strapping, but I'm not sure how to describe them.  This is where one of the
aforementioned cameras would really come in handy.  For now I'll say the the
bracket is attached to one of the body panel brackets and it allows the two
trumpets to snuggle against the foam lining the right body panel just behind
the opening.

The wires and air line were run inside the perimeter frame and fastened down
with nylon zip ties.  With the body panel back in place nothing shows ...
but you sure can here it!  :-)

One annoyance about the mounting hardware that came with the horns:  there
is a special square-headed bolt for mounting the horns that came with a
single, non-locking nut and no lock washer either.  I *REALLY* like to use
nylon lock nuts.  The bolts are metric -- M6-1.0 which is easy to find in
some parts of the world ... not here though.  Lowes was sold out of their
pathetic supply and it was now to late to hit Home Despot (aka "Agent
Orange").  I did my ride Saturday without.

Any questions?

- --
Bill "Bench Dawg" Flowers
Clearwater FL
'00 Sapphire Blue Triumph Sprint ST "Jewel"


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