Stebel horn in stock horn position hits front fender

[summerb37]

I put a Stebel horn on for safety because very few people ever heard the stock horn. It works really well. It fits nicely in the original mounting bracket for the stock horn. However, one day I noticed something on my front fender when cleaning my bike. I was not sure if the mark on the top of the front fender was from some corrosive liquid or from the horn hitting the fender. Anyway, it turns out the front forks compress fully often enough that plastic from the horn wore off on the front fender. First, I cannot believe Yamaha put such weak springs in the front end. I’m 140-145lbs, so there isn’t a lot of weight near the front. In addition, I’m usually carrying weight in the back end, which would also take weight off the front end, yet the horn is still hitting the front fender. I measured the distance and the front forks have to compress 2&1/2”s before the Stebel horn starts to hit the front fender. Now I’m left wondering if I should change the front springs and put in an emulator or if I should just mount the horn in another spot. In my humble opinion, the people who have complained about weak front forks in previous post are validated by this evidence. I’m only traveling on the streets too, so it is not like the roads are extremely rough.

Thoughts or comments?

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

I have my Stebal mounted under the left side fairing. I made an aluminum bracket 1/8" thick, designed it to fit to the stock Stebal mount, then bolted it up to the front fairing stay (sorry no pictures of the bracket right now but I may have some later today/this week). It is a tight fit with the black top cover so you have to take that into account if mounting under the fairing. Its a much neater installation

The below picture is that of the bike with it mounted, it is still VERY AUDIBLE..


I may be under the upper black fairing and will take some pictures.

I hope you did use a relay for the horn...

 

[huxy]

Pictures and a running commentary from when I fitted my horn.

Hux's Bike Blog: Hux has got the Horn

 

[Jim Karam]

There's an empty hole on the lower left part of the frame that's just waiting to mount a horn. I've been running for years and 20K miles in that position, so, no, water and road crap don't bother it. It's also easy to route wiring to it using the clips that hold the wires going to the kickstand switch.

 

[TownsendsFJR1300]

Here's the pictures I mentioned earlier of the mounting bracket I have on my 07:

The horn is pretty much hidden, and out of the elements..

If you look closely, you can see I cut the bracket to set into the fairing stay so it does move and also the other end it trimmed to fit around/to the horn so it too, doesn't move...