INSTALLING 4-NOTE CADILLAC DeVILLE HORNS |
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IN MY '53 F-100 |
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JOHN NIOLON |
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| I've been building on this truck forever... literally. Adding stuff here and there...getting it like I want it. One thing I've wanted was a set of train horns, but with a 460 in the engine room and fiberglass front end, there's very little space and attachment opportunities without the hardware showing (no inner fenders or metal air dam at the radiator. Between drive train and trans cooler and battery under the cab and exhaust system, the problem is the same.. No room for a compressor and a 4 horn setup toward the front of the truck. The fuel tank is under the bed filling that location. So an alternate approach needed to be found | |
| Google
led me around the WWW until I happened onto a site for Tocama trucks of all places and I
found a solution I'd forgotten I even knew. 4 note Cadillac horns. In the 70s
and 80s and even back to the 50s most all the big Caddys Olds and Buicks had a 4 horn
system that gave a reasonable train horn sound, although some of the older ones used
actual trumpet type horns. Tuned to 4 different notes A,C,D,F respectively, they
give a nice musical sound and they are LOUD. Twelve volts is all you need. No
compressor or hoses and it takes up about 10" x 7" of space
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this takes up much more room |
than this |
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| Another thing I like about the four smaller horns is that there must be a hundred ways and places to mount them.. They have long mount brackets, while they aren't adjustable, they offer lots of options. You can search google and find several different mountings some in a straight line, some stacked and some separated on different sides of the vehicles. | |
| I had already been looking for a location for mine that would be in the front and have ample room for the mounting and offer something substantial to fix them too. As I mentioned before, with a full fiberglass front dog-house anything you have to drill will show on the visible surface. I picked an area below what would be the air dam and behind the valance so I could use the tilt hinges and grill mounting bolts for attachment | |
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| After I found my location I worked on fabbing up a mount to get all four horns in the space it provided. Two or three ideas came to mind but I finally settled on this |
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| This picture is the first try and I had to clean it up a little later, I used 1/4''x20 rivet nuts in the brackets on the horns and bolted them through the mounting straps with 1/4" hardware. Then mounted the second pair under the first with a standoff tube holding them in place | |
| After I
was satisfied with the mount and made sure they fit in the location I had picked I blew it
all apart, cleaned up the ugly edges, removed one piece of unnecessary metal and
painted the individual pieces.
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| After all of it dried, I bolted it back together and fabbed up a wiring harness. Some of the horns are one wire with the housing providing the ground. These were two wire with a Delphi waterproof connectors. A little soldering and heat shrink tubing and wire and it was done. Tied it all up with zip ties and here's the finished product | |
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| got sidetracked on other projects and finally got back to installing. Here's where it sits and how it looks | |
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| this audio file is with the phone sitting on the bench about 6 feet in front of the truck.. it really doesn't do it justice.. its much LOUDER. But you can hear the horns tone well enough | |
