kubel
Well-known member
I'm going to try to use a digital style horn with a speaker instead of a traditional dual horn setup. I'll have to butcher a police siren control box to get the noise I want, but it would sound more appropriate for an EV. 
DIY Horn Upgrade Mod - Updated Jan 12
- Thread starter OrientExpress
- Start date
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Ingineer
Well-known member
Interesting, what kind of sound are you going for?
-Phil
-Phil
kpkimi
Member
The 2012 models still have the sickly horn. I just got through updating my 2012 Leaf and it sounds great! I ordered the FIAMM 74100 El Grande - Twin horns from Amazon -- and of course that item is not available for shipment to Hawaii. So it went to a friends house in California and I retrieved it there about a month ago. I mounted each horn separately -- one on the original bolt holding the old horn and the other on the unused 13mm bolt. I also made 2 pigtails to plug into the power and ground. Now I have a real horn! Thanks everyone for your tips!
TRONZ
Well-known member
kpkimi said:
Did you use that little relay thing that came with it or just wire them up in parallel? What gauge wire did you use? Mine have been sitting on the workbench for awhile now but I am ready to crawl under there and get-er done.
OrientExpress
Well-known member
TRONZ said:
No you do not have to use the relay that comes with the horn, just wire them up in parallel as shown in the DIY. I use 18g wire to make the pigtails. Good luck with it.
TRONZ
Well-known member
OrientExpress said:
Thank you!
DeaneG
Well-known member
Are they worried that the horns will get loose and reproduce in the wild?kpkimi said:
Nubo
Well-known member
DeaneG said:
Yeah I was kind of curious about the "of course".
keydiver
Well-known member
Its probably one of those "free shipping included, EXCEPT to Hawaii and Alaska" things.
Ren116214
Member
I ordered the FIAMM 74100 El Grande twin horns from Amazon as well. I just installed them yesterday, exactly the way shown on the DIY (thanks for that!!) with a few exceptions:
When the horns arrived from Amazon, they did not include any brackets or mounting hardware of any kind. The package looked like it might have previously been opened. Even the nuts on the back of the horns were missing. The order slip from Amazon said clearly, "NO RETURN on this item", so I scrounged what I needed to make my own one-piece bracket and found some nuts of the right size.
I wanted to put the LEAF up on my ramps, but the ramps did not fit under the nose of the car. So I pretty much had to go through the top. I ended up making a tool to keep the center bolt of the bracket from rotating while I used a crescent wrench on the nut to hold it in place. I got a few scrapes from working in the tight quarters while tightening that nut down, but in the end, it all came out well...and the horn sounds much more respectable now. ;-)
When the horns arrived from Amazon, they did not include any brackets or mounting hardware of any kind. The package looked like it might have previously been opened. Even the nuts on the back of the horns were missing. The order slip from Amazon said clearly, "NO RETURN on this item", so I scrounged what I needed to make my own one-piece bracket and found some nuts of the right size.
I wanted to put the LEAF up on my ramps, but the ramps did not fit under the nose of the car. So I pretty much had to go through the top. I ended up making a tool to keep the center bolt of the bracket from rotating while I used a crescent wrench on the nut to hold it in place. I got a few scrapes from working in the tight quarters while tightening that nut down, but in the end, it all came out well...and the horn sounds much more respectable now. ;-)
Nubo
Well-known member
Ren116214 said:
Wow. Remember when whatever you got from Amazon arrived in perfect condition and the next day?
Ren116214
Member
Nubo said:
Yeah...really. With that "no return" policy, I suppose I should be grateful that I didn't get just an empty box.
OrientExpress
Well-known member
Don't let that stop you from getting what your ordered. Simply go to the returns page, have an agent call you, and explain to them that what they sent you was incomplete and missing parts. They will send you another one, and give you a shipping label to return the one with the missing parts.
Click here to get in touch with a returns agent
baronvonshush
Well-known member
I was just about to say it sounded like the item was purchased from a third-party seller through Amazon, which doesn't necessarily adhere to Amazon's shipping and return policies. But I just checked their page for the horns and saw:OrientExpress said:
Wow, never seen that on an item sold directly from Amazon before. But yeah, I'd still say they should cover it since the package was incomplete - their mistake.
FWIW, I ordered mine last month on a Saturday and the package arrived, fully intact on Monday two days later (!). I was expecting it to ship out on Monday and arrive Wednesday, so no complaints there!
stevewa
Member
I ordered and installed these a couple of weeks ago, no issues...they did come with the brackets and all the hardware. Perhaps Amazon has had trouble with people returning these incomplete in the past?
leafydragon
Member
I just did mine.
The FIAMM horns that I bought were not marked as EL GRANDE, they are marked "AM80S, 12V, Super horn pair with relay, barcode: 0 32741 74100 3"
They have the same metal grille, but the red plastic covers do not have "fins".
Got them in a department store for the equivalent of 19.3 USD.
I went in from the top.
Didn't have any spade connectors, so soldered wires to link the two horns together, then used the existing female spades to hook up to the new horns.
As for mounting...
I didn't have suitable shaped mounting brackets... so I just ziptied the horns to the aluminium bumper beam, and slathered on some generic 2-toothpaste-tube-epoxy. :lol:
I figured it wouldn't be disastrous even if the horns did fall off, they'd just end up tumbling around on that black plastic "floor" of the compartment.
The FIAMM horns that I bought were not marked as EL GRANDE, they are marked "AM80S, 12V, Super horn pair with relay, barcode: 0 32741 74100 3"
They have the same metal grille, but the red plastic covers do not have "fins".
Got them in a department store for the equivalent of 19.3 USD.
I went in from the top.
Didn't have any spade connectors, so soldered wires to link the two horns together, then used the existing female spades to hook up to the new horns.
As for mounting...
I didn't have suitable shaped mounting brackets... so I just ziptied the horns to the aluminium bumper beam, and slathered on some generic 2-toothpaste-tube-epoxy. :lol:
I figured it wouldn't be disastrous even if the horns did fall off, they'd just end up tumbling around on that black plastic "floor" of the compartment.
Leafboy
Well-known member
WOW that's different! An Italian brand horn, made in the USA and bought in Singapore.
Solangelist
Member
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2012
- Messages
- 13
OrientExpress said:
Additional clarification: Using a thin blade narrow screw driver, insert the tip between the central plastic snap the surrounding plastic collar. When the plastic snap (pin) pops up, holding it fully up, the plastic bezel [deck] can be pulled out.
To put it back, hold the pin all the way up and then push the outer insert into the collar. When the collar is fully down, push the central pin in to snap down.
OrientExpress said:
Thanks for the clarification, but... you must be the only person in the world w/o a digital camera.Solangelist said:
