First I'd like to thank Spunkmyer for his idea on where to mount the Stebel Nautilus horn as he described in THIS post. I finally got around to starting my own install a couple weeks ago after buying the horn itself over one year ago! :dribble: I must not be a true farkler in the mold of the FJR-forum if I wait over a year to install a new farkle. :clown2: Hey, life happens and thing get out-prioritized.
From a safety standpoint, I was most concerned with the horn hitting the fender under heavy braking and thereby restricting steering inputs. The other concern was reduced cooling air to the radiator, but I ride on the cold and wet side of Washington state where we don't see high temps in the summer. I'll just have to keep an eye on coolant temps when I venture to warmer climates. And because I ride a lot in the rain, I wanted to make sure the horn could drain easily.
By holding the horn in front of the radiator, I could see that it would be possible to make a bracket that would position the horn close to the radiator and tilted back so that the fender could not hit it and rain could easily drain out of the opening. I next cut a piece of cardboard to get a rough idea of what shape my bracket would need to be (shown on left in picture below). It's real easy to trim with scissors until it looks like it'll work. I then used my cardboard as a template to cut a scrap piece of sheetmetal so that I could actually/sorta mount the horn and get the bends correct. Now that I had proof that this idea would work, I traced my pattern on a piece of 1/8" steel. A little cutting, drilling, filing, bending and painting yielded the final product (on the right in the picture below). :yahoo:
Here is a picture of the bracket installed on the Stebel Nautilus horn:
I should note that I had to do some fine tuning on the bracket bends before painting it. The positioning is critical so that the horn won't hit anywhere on the radiator while turning the bars lock to lock.
Here's a front view of the horn installed. I haven't hooked up any wiring yet.
And finally, here's a side view of the horn installed:
A couple notes for anyone else considering this type of install. The two bolts that hold the horn are stock Yami bolts that have a larger diameter shoulder between the head and the threaded section. This requires drilling the holes in the bracket larger than the thread size so that the bracket will sit flush against the plastic splash guard and the bottom of the triple tree. You also have to wiggle the plastic piece around while tightening the bolts so that it gets positioned correctly on the bolt shoulder. I felt that there was still sufficient thread engagement with the horn bracket installed. Because I didn't want a heavy horn flopping around due to loose fasteners, Locktite was used on these bolts.
I didn't document wiring because it's standard fare. I did retain the stock horns, but the Stebel horn is so loud :devilsmiley: that I can't say whether I can still hear the stock ones or not. I just figured that more noise is always better! These horns get 2 thumbs up from me! :thumbsupsmileyanim:
From a safety standpoint, I was most concerned with the horn hitting the fender under heavy braking and thereby restricting steering inputs. The other concern was reduced cooling air to the radiator, but I ride on the cold and wet side of Washington state where we don't see high temps in the summer. I'll just have to keep an eye on coolant temps when I venture to warmer climates. And because I ride a lot in the rain, I wanted to make sure the horn could drain easily.
By holding the horn in front of the radiator, I could see that it would be possible to make a bracket that would position the horn close to the radiator and tilted back so that the fender could not hit it and rain could easily drain out of the opening. I next cut a piece of cardboard to get a rough idea of what shape my bracket would need to be (shown on left in picture below). It's real easy to trim with scissors until it looks like it'll work. I then used my cardboard as a template to cut a scrap piece of sheetmetal so that I could actually/sorta mount the horn and get the bends correct. Now that I had proof that this idea would work, I traced my pattern on a piece of 1/8" steel. A little cutting, drilling, filing, bending and painting yielded the final product (on the right in the picture below). :yahoo:
Here is a picture of the bracket installed on the Stebel Nautilus horn:
I should note that I had to do some fine tuning on the bracket bends before painting it. The positioning is critical so that the horn won't hit anywhere on the radiator while turning the bars lock to lock.
Here's a front view of the horn installed. I haven't hooked up any wiring yet.
And finally, here's a side view of the horn installed:
A couple notes for anyone else considering this type of install. The two bolts that hold the horn are stock Yami bolts that have a larger diameter shoulder between the head and the threaded section. This requires drilling the holes in the bracket larger than the thread size so that the bracket will sit flush against the plastic splash guard and the bottom of the triple tree. You also have to wiggle the plastic piece around while tightening the bolts so that it gets positioned correctly on the bolt shoulder. I felt that there was still sufficient thread engagement with the horn bracket installed. Because I didn't want a heavy horn flopping around due to loose fasteners, Locktite was used on these bolts.
I didn't document wiring because it's standard fare. I did retain the stock horns, but the Stebel horn is so loud :devilsmiley: that I can't say whether I can still hear the stock ones or not. I just figured that more noise is always better! These horns get 2 thumbs up from me! :thumbsupsmileyanim:
