Air Horns Bruce Giller

On the Beltway, a fellow driver needed to be reminded not to intrude into my '86 Spider-space with a friendly reminder from my horn. I got a shorter than expected blast and then nothing. Subsequent pushing of the center horn button was met with silence.

I thought at first that the horn fuse blew out or that there was a bad ground. I found out that there isn't any horn fuse and all connections were good for I was getting a mighty 12v at the horns themselves. My horns had given up the ghost.

Now, my quandary was to reinstall OEM horns or go with air horns. OEM horns cost about $45 for the pair. In the Centerline catalog, they were offering dual Hella air horns for $25. The House of Manny, Moe and Jack had other brand name air horns for around $40 for an equivalent pair. I decided to get the Hella air horns wanting my diminutive but nimble Spider to sound like a Mac truck.

The Hella package contained two plastic air horns (two different notes), air compressor unit, horn relay, air hose and mounting hardware. The first thing I did was remove the OEM horns and put the new air horns on. The instructions said to point the horns to the front of the car and tip the horns slightly down so that any water that might get in them will drain out easily. The mounting brackets were easy to bend into shape and the horns fit nicely on the original mounting points.

Then I needed to find a position for the air compressor. The unit is about 8" long and about 3" in diameter and had to be mounted with the air outlet on the bottom. It was suggested that the compressor be located equal distance from each air horn so that one wouldn't blow before the other. There just isn't much room in the engine compartment for a compressor, but there is some in the nose section in front of the radiator. To get to this area, I had to take off the grill work. I had to drill a hole in the drivers side support bracket to mount the compressor. It took a bit of maneuvering to get the drill lined up where I wanted the hole drilled. The compressor is mounted with a single captive bolt.

I decided to use their relay instead of just wiring the existing horn wire directly to the compressor. I mounted the relay on the side of the engine compartment next to the main terminal block. I bought a 25 A spade type fuse holder and fuse and attached one end to the main terminal block and the other to the relay. I used the existing left horn wire to trip the relay and ran the power wire to the compressor.

Since there was only one air connector on the compressor, a T-connector was supplied. I tried to make the length of hose from each horn to the T-connector the same length. However, the amount of hose with the kit was insufficient so I had to buy some extra hose from Manny, Moe and Jack. The hose just slides on the connectors easily, no need for hose clamps.

The moment of truth arrived and the silence was broken by a mighty TTTOOOOOOTTTT from my Spider! It made me jump even though I knew it was coming. All this took me about 3 hours to complete not including the trips to the parts store. I got to test my new horns the other day when a pickup tried to wander in my lane and with a short, sharp, shock-wave from my Spider made him quickly get back where he belonged!

Capital page

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1996