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
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
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