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Anyone ever get into their horns?

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Jake

Jake

Jedi Hopeful
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While I was in NY, I worked a little on the 100 project (it lives out there for the time being). One thing I did was to pull off the horns and bring them home with me so I could go through them, neither worked when hooked up to 12V.

I suspect they might be the original ones to the car, the date stamps are 3/54 and 4/54 and this car is a late April '54 model. Both are HF1748's, one high and one low, still painted the metallic beige that's supposed to be original.

Anyways, today I cracked them open. No stripped threads, a few of the bolts needed heat on one of them, the other took some torque and kroil and they moved. Pics are only of the first one, it's cleaner inside but not by much, they're both pretty decent looking.

Just thought I'd share a few photos for the fun of it. I'll post progress (if I make any) of bringing them back into working order.

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Photos? I can't see them.

Old horns often have issues, such as cracked or broken castings. If you have originals without major damage, it likely makes sense to attempt to rebuild them. Sounds like a good project.
 
^ Thanks for pointing out that the pics weren't showing up, I switched where they were hosted. Yeah, no crack or broken bits, I hope I can get them working otherwise they'll just be pretty pieces.
 
Nice job, they are expensive second hand.

I did mine some time ago. From '67 and looked rusted but they are working again.

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Quick follow up, I was able to find the workshop manual section for the repair of these horns. It has invaluable information about setting proper travel, amperage draw and winding and capacitance values. Long story short, I followed the instructions and got the low note working last night. It sounds great but boy, is it loud! I still need to measure and adjust the amps, plus I'd like to measure the hertz and decibels, just to know what tones these actually put out.
 
They're a pretty simple affair, and I've always gotten the early style (like yours) to work again, just by cleaning them up. I don't remember changing any settings on them, but it was 15 or 20 years ago, so maybe I did.

Wait until you get them both working in unison__yep, loud and proud! Growing up in Detroit, the public transportation was GM buses of the era (50s/60s) and these Healey horns sound JUST LIKE they did! If you blast your horn around anybody familiar with those old buses, they'll get out of your way pretty quick! :hammer:
 
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