stebel horn only "plays" one note

anyone else had a stebel that starts to be a bit tardy respoding to the horn button and intermittently playing both notes
any advice?

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agf said:

anyone else had a stebel that starts to be a bit tardy respoding to the horn button and intermittently playing both notes
any advice?

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner and it works every time !

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I don't but the lack of current can create some strange side effects. Do a quick bypass connecting them directly to the battery. if they sound normal, the relay contacts are likely dirty and should be replaced. You could also check the voltage to them. It should be very near battery voltage. If lower than battery voltage, find out why!

My Stebel only pays one note, so I don't know about that.

Do you have it wired thru a separate RELAY, specifially and only for the Stebel horn? Then using the factory horn harness to activate (trigger) the horn? If going thru the stock harness with NO RELAY, the horn button will burn up as that horn does draw a bunch of power.

With the horn button "cooked"(if it is), as Randy states above, may be the reason for the alternating amount current getting to the horn, thus the alternating sound...

There also is an o-ring inbetween the metal air pump and and plastic horn itself. They DO separate with the release of one (or two, I forgot) plastic retainers (very brittle BTW).


The below picture shows the horn mounted on my old KLR 250 in two pieces with clear hose inbetween the two pieces:

I have wired the horn thru a relay so as to avoid burning out the switch but I do have the stock horn wired in paralell so it may well be a voltage thing. Might try unplugging that before i head home tonight and see if it changes anything. the stocker plays pretty much as I remember it should, so we'll see.
I'll let you know what I do and if it changes anything

just home from work- definately a voltage thing, unplugged the stock horn and instant response. But it requires higher revs than idle to get the dual tone. I'll check the voltages over the weekend and see what Im getting from the battery.

I put it on tender trickle charge over the last w/end and it went into float mode after a few hours as per usual so I figure the battery and charging system is all doing as it should
The relay seems to be cutting in fine but Ill see if thats dropping voltage from across the battery. any ideas if there should be any resistance and therefore a drop, or would it be in the vicinity of.01-.05? Im thinking that a relay shouldnt cause any significant drop as its just a switch, unless of course its dirty/corroded contact points in which case I'll need to swap it
keep you posted

I've heard of the relay (if you bought the wiring kit) failing with time. The horn does pull a bunch of current (would dim my lights on my old KLR 250 when activated). I believe its supposed to wired with a 20 amp fuse.

The horn itself puts a fair amount of load on the battery, so a voltage drop wouldn't surprise me.

NOTE-You mentioned higher rev's and it works fine, that's telling me with the higher rev's, the engines putting out more voltage, then the horn works fine. If the battery is borderline good, that's probably not helping, a load test would rule that out.

Actually, if you could jump the bike battery (still installed) to a known GOOD automotive battery (car NOT RUNNING), the extra power should let you know if your battery is (or is not) covering the power needed for the horn to operate properly.

Changing out the relay with another for testing purposes should help narrow it down if the above doesn't pan out.

Good luck.

Hi Scott, when I bought the horn the relay failed on first test I was pretty unimpressed. changed it and all was good
Ill try and get aload test done this w/end. its the same batt from when i bought the bike off the showroom floor in 2011 so it'd been siting in it since 2009- could be fritzed, wouldnt surprise me as I know they can just give up the ghost, has happened to me b4 and twice to my son, but he had bought cheap batteries so what can you expect.

anyway a bit more testing is in order, certainly i want to be sure I dont run out of juice when I need it most

ok finally got t o put a meter across the battery not running 12.8 v
running(idling) upto 13.2 v then with the revs up to 3.5-4k about 14 v.

then I hooked up the meter to the horn connectors with no horn in the system and about the same results when I hit the horn button, so I figure that the system and the relay are doing exactly what they should. I ran another battery on the horn and still get a single tone
so I am thinking that maybe the horn is the problem, not the power supply, maybe the compressor is stuffed I might pull it off over the w/end strip it down and see if there is an air leak or something similar otherwise I might have to fork out for another as I like that 139dB of noise

Sounds like there is an issue with the horn if its still not working when hooked directly to a good battery(no relays, straight hook up).

The horn itself will separate from the pump. There's one plastic retainer (very fragile-my screwdriver is pointing at it in picture #1). With the help of a second set of hands, GENTLY pry the plastic retainer away and separate the two. You may have some crap stuck inside the horn it self (a nest, ??). Blowing out with air, maybe some lube dwn the steel part might loosen things up (got nothing to loose at this point).

There is a yellow 0 ring between the two pieces, don't loose it.

The below picture show's the horn separated with a hose connecting the two parts on my old KLR. Even if the tab breaks, you can usually zip tie it back together.