1949 HydraGlide Horn mounting

[schmittm]

This may be a dumb question, but here goes; was there a one year only special horn for the '49 Glides?

My stock '49 frame has the full diameter (un-pinched) wishbone tubes with the horn mounting blocks welded to the backside of the frame tubes. I'm pretty sure its all original. The bike had no horn when I bought it years ago, just a couple of loose wires with spade connectors (for a repop horn I assume) crimped on them, and one broken #12x24 mounting screw stuck down in one of the blocks. I finally found an original Delco 16 and restored it back to perfect appearance and working condition thanks to Perry Ruiter's excellent instructions, but I can't mount it because there is no clearance between the back of the horn and the front pan/fuel crossover line. The horn itself will bolt up but the two wire terminals seem to hit everything.

My theory on 49 Glide horns, based on what I can see, is that the horn mounting location was an afterthought. They designed the hydraulic forks and then realized they had no place for a horn. They probably had a bunch of springer horns on the shelf and came up with the idea of turning them sideways and bolting them to the blocks welded on the down-tubes. When you turn the horn sideways there is no way to make the eagle fly straight on the chrome cover (the horn body is rivetted to the bracket, you can't rotate it) so they simply took it off and ran the bare horn. The eventual solution, until they introduced the trumpet horns, was to pinch the tubes to provide more clearance.

Back to my question; if this is a stock springer horn, how do you mount it? Are the terminals modified (shortened)? I tried flipping it over with the terminals down, they hit the exhaust. With the terminals up they would short out on the D-Ring or fuel crossover.

Thanks for any suggestions,

mike

[bmh]

It is the same horn as the late springers used except that it no longer uses the winged cover. Looking at my 51 frame I can see where the flat spots would create additional clearence for the horn, but it should still fit your bike. I would check too be sure the mounting strap on the horn itself is straight and not bowed in ( may even need bowed out a little but I can't say for sure ) and also take a good look at your fuel line. It might need tweaked a little, especialy if it's an after market deal. I can't say about fuel lines but I've had plenty of grief trying to get after market oil lines to line up and fit proper.
Brian

[dorsel]

I just finished looking through the 48, 49, and 50 model parts manuals I have, and it appears the 49 may have had a unique horn all there own. The 49 manual shows a different part number from the 48 model but it is a -48 number, in the 50 manual they now go back and show an old number for all models up through 50 as the same number.

[bmh]

My 50 - 57 parts book shows #69001-42 for all springer modles and #69001-48A for 50 -54 hydra glides. I asked a few peo[le and they didn't know of a special horn for 49 although a good freind who has run a shop for 35 years now pondered if your frame might not be tweeked. He's seen a few rigid frames over the years with the down tubes bowed back slightly from rear-ending a car or the like. I'll be seeing another friend who is just finishing a 50 and see what he knows. Bye the way , what part #'s do your books show?
Brian

[schmittm]

thanks for the responses, I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get a hit on this question.

I got the same part numbers that you did Brian. The -42A number seems to be the same horn without the chrome cover. The bracket which is riveted tightly to the horn body has different diameter holes on opposite ends which was intentially done because of the unique mounting for the top and bottom. I guess they did it so you couldn't mount it upside down.

I looked at as many 49's as I could find at Davenport this year, there were several great examples of unaltered or very original bikes. I may have found the problem. The early pans had 6 screws holding the pan to the head, and no "D" ring. A previous owner drilled and tapped the extra holes in my heads and added a "D" ring and 6 more screws, the "D" ring seriously gets into the space needed for the horn connections. The original bikes I looked at all had a fuel cross over line with a sort of sink trap bend in them that went around the electrical connections, mine goes straight across, right in front of the connections.

So, if I grind a little relief in the "D" ring and find a fuel cross-over line that goes above or below the horn connections, I should be able to mount the original horn.

Again, you guys are great, thanks for all the suggestions! Together, we should be able to get that repop horn off of my bike and get the correct one back on it.

mike

[BEK]

Mike...

First of all it was great meeting you in Davenport.
As far as the 6 screws holding down the pan covers goes, I believe this was only in 1955 and possibly very late 1954. Palmer's book mentions this as does Greg Fields book on Panheads. That is when they came out with the thick aluminum D-rings and probably thought that would stop any leaking.
Also I loved your '49, it looked great in black paint, but then I'm sort of partial to that color.

Bruce

[portagepan]

Didn't they have an aluminum D ring on the first couple of years? Then they went to the thin steel rings that were prone to leaking? and then switch back in 54-5?
Mike

[flthead]

no d rings

no d rings used on 48 49 50 pans

[schmittm]

You guys are all correct about the different combinations they used for the pan valve covers, what is not correct is the stuff that is on my bike.

As flthead mentioned, the first 3 years did not use a "D" ring and the pans were held down with 12 round head screws. This put the cover close to the head with plenty of space above it for the horn terminals to protrude. The '51 thru late '54's used a 3 ply steel ring about 3/16" thick, still held down with 12 #10x24 screws. They introduced the thick cast aluminum "D" ring in 55 and tried to hold it with just 6 screws. They kept the aluminum ring until the end in 65 and I think all the covers were aluminum too after 57.

Back to my bike, as I mentioned above, some previous owner ruined a set of 1955 one year only 6 hole "D" rings by drilling 6 extra holes in each of them and screwed them down with the hex head screws using the thick paper gasket under the stainless cover. This combination pretty much wipes out all the clearance space that the horn needs. I also have a replacement fuel crossover line that routes the line directly behind the top of the horn instead of over it.

The factory must of had problems with this too because when they started using the steel rings they also started pinching the frame tubes to give the horn a little more clearance, and then finally went to the trumpet horn.

I'm going to pull the heads this winter, when I reassemble it I'm going to try to put it back to the original 1949 configuration. So, until then, if you should hear a panhead beeping at you with a Taiwan accent, just ignore it.

mike