Ok. Here we go.
I became a volunteer firefighter in my town in high school and fell in love with it. I always wanted to install a Grover 1510 Stuttertone airhorn on my vehicle. (Think firetruck)
I squeezed this 24" airhorn under my Camry when I was younger. And I've had a truck in between my current truck now that didn't have it.
I decided it was time to put it back on for letting people know when they were doing something pretty dumb in front of me. (Crossing center line, deer, pulling out in front of me, etc.)
So I wanted to document my install and maybe give you guys some ideas of maybe where to place everything.
I am OCD when it comes to most installs and this one was pretty much the same. A couple things I've considered changing, but we'll get to that later.
This all started one day after a guy pulled out in front of me and the stock horn just didn't do it for me as far as warning power.
It was then I decided to break out the Grover and figure out if I could install it in the Pearl.
I first brought everything together from it's storage box in the basement. I threw it all in the front seat and after work one Sunday, I pulled my truck inside the shop where I work (machining)
I just laid underneath the truck, contemplating where to put everything, while keeping everything hidden as best I could, and using the least amount of hose and wires. I have in cab floor "cubbies" I guess you would call them. So much of my working area was limited already. Mind you I'm installing a 2ft. long airhorn with a 6" bell on the end of it.
I should note I spent DAYS thinking about how to run and where to locate everything on the truck. I assembled supplies and got to it.
First install was the horn. Most important item I feel like to get properly placed and secured. I took a piece of scrap aluminum and held it against the horn and worked on a place to put it.
Finally deciding that next to the cab mount in the furthest forward driver side area was best. The airhorn faces backwards. That's right, backwards. I know, I know. Better alerting if it faced forward, but I had to mount it with the least amount of interference with the future location of running boards I want to install. (Don't mind the rust. I am currently in the process of using some encapsulator and then a layer of Cosmoline before winter hits. Last owner did nothing to prevent/slow rust)
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Now my airhorn came with a support bracket that goes down about half way to support the horn on a roof. Unfortunately, That doesn't work upside-down. So, First ugly fix of the Job: Two zip-ties supporting the tube to the parking brake cable shielding.
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That was one weekend down. I work weekends, so during the week I had some air line (1/4" DOT air brake line) and some push lok type fittings shipped to the house. All air fittings are threaded with 1/8" NPT.
So, air line and fittings came in and I installed the fittings on the tank and compressor, making sure to have clearance away from the frame. I decided to put these two main components on the skid plate underneath the transfer case. Will it suck when it comes time to change the fluid? Probably. But it's two mounting bolts for the compressor and that's all I should have to undo. I should note that blue threadlocker was used on all fittings that didn't involve air handling.
Picture is color coded to descriptions of what each item is and where it goes (if applicable)
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Pretty neat labeling right? Just found that on the app store for my mac. (Photoscape X) (Free)
Anyway, So I have all the fittings installed and PTFE taped up, so now it's time to install them on the plate. For these components to be installed correctly, I mocked them up and scratched a cross in the plate to know where center is for my holes. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. Here's a picture after I drilled them and just set them on the plate.
(I installed the plate and then put the tank and compressor on the plate after it was back on the vehicle for the actual install.)
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So, if you're keeping up with this breakdown, I've got the horn itself in. The tank and compressor are now in. Now it's time for air lines and the solenoid so they are sealed while I waited to figure out what I was going to do to get everything wired safely and cleanly. Couple of quick pictures showing solenoid and air lines.
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Most of the air line pictures were taken while I was wiring them up so you'll see some partial wiring already.
Solenoid, compressor, and tank installed.
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Now the fun part!!!
Wiring! I love clean wire installs that look like nothing has been done. At least tough to tell with a unknowing eye. I had issues the first time I installed this in my car, and learned from those mistakes.
Hopefully, if you have a project in mind like this these bulletins will help you.
-- Fuses are a must
-- Always install a toggle switch that is turned off every time you exit the vehicle. I had an incident were an air line broke and killed my battery because the compressor ran all night.
-- I used a momentary push button switch that only works when the main power toggle switch is on. (pictures coming up next)
-- Heat shrink heat shrink heat shrink protect that expensive copper wiring.
-- Avoid inline splices at all costs. There's a reason Canada has banned these fire starters.
Ok, that's out of the way. Let's wire this baby!
If there's one thing I hate about wiring, it's running multiple wires to the terminals of the batteries. It looks bad and just begs for corrosion and connection issues down the road. I have seen what good wiring looks like on the 500K pumpers we have and seeing those inspire me to have as clean of wire runs as i can. Ok, picture time!
First picture here is a fuse box of sorts that uses one feed and one ground from your battery. From there, it holds up to 6 circuits, each individually fused with notifying LED's if a fuse is popped. Handy in late night wire trouble shooting. (god forbid)
I used command velcro strips to mount it on top of my main fuse box. I did not want to voluntarily allow an opportunity for dirt and contaminants to enter. Not only that, but screws into my box lid really makes reading the label on the inside of the lid pretty difficult. That, and I wanted to be able to quickly remove the panel without tools just in case access was required out in the wild. BTW, found this on amazon.
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Ok, so if you're keeping up still, I have a fused circuit panel ready to be wired. Running the wire was easy once I found a spare rubber plug in the firewall behind the clutch pedal. Using a pen, i poked a hole just big enough for the 14 AWG wire to run through individually. I believe I ran five wires through. But we'll get to which wire goes where.
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You see that loom? Gorgeous right? That little extra touch keeps wires from moving where they shouldn't and protects them from your boots, etc.
Ok, I've got wire run. Loom on everything. time to wire a switch. The switch placement took me literally a half hour. I have not had a vehicle this nice in my life and cutting holes in the dash didn't seem like a willy-nilly thing to do. I finally decided on the panel behind the multifunction switch just right of the headlight switch. Measured twice, cut once (with some fine tune trimming) and she was done.
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Oh baby was I sweating bullets. Even in the 50* temps I was working in, I was super nervous. Couple more helpful tips about switches and wiring.
-- Hook your wires up and do a quick test to make sure you have things hooked up correctly before pushing that tight fitting switch into the dash. You don't want to go prying it out of your nice dash.
-- Most switches will be labeled with the terminal functions. Power, ground, accessory.
I used a roll of 14 AWG wire for the entire job. (It's cheaper.) To make sense of all the wires, consider using white wire and labeling them with dash marks. Like, no lines, one line, two lines, etc. and then write a legend on a piece of paper in case you second guess yourself.
Ok, whew. We are in the home stretch now baby.
All that's left is the second most nerve racking thing I decided to do on this project. Milling holes for an illuminated switch and corresponding wires into a brand new $70 black anodized Hurst pistol grip shifter.
I was really lucky because when I measured the threads for the switch, they were .624" The drill I had available was .625" Holy smokes talk about a nice snug fit. No glue, no JB Weld, just a couple thin strips of masking tape made it snug in the hole. Now, I decided to go with quick disconnect spade terminals to connect the switch to the wiring running down the shifter. You don't have to, but it makes future removal of the shifter handle (if necessary) much easier. I used loom to cover the wires, and it doesn't look awful, but it is thick. Check out the pictures and you'll see. This is the one thing I thought about changing. I considered using something like 5/8" heat shrink over the whole thing, but decided against it so far. We'll see how it plays out. Picture dump: engaged.
Before:
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After:
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Gorgeous if I do say so myself. Just like you reading this.
Ok, now it's time for the install of the shifter. Pretty straight forward.
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Now everything is wired at this point. Time to test connectivity. Standby for the wiring description, it's coming later, and it's a doozy.
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This switch is really bright. Kinda regret using it, but the left side of the steering wheel blocks it, so I've been dealing with it for now. Might be changed later. Red on Black is my color scheme for this truck.
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Boys we are getting there now. After this I put loom over all the wires and waited till the next day to try it. It was 3 am. at this point.
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See? It's so ugly. I really wanted to solder the connections and heat shrink them, then heat shrink the whole deal to the shifter shaft itself. I am just glad it's at least loomed instead of electrical taped, or worse, just hanging there in the open. Ok, it's done. Now, wiring it isn't the hard part really. It's figuring out where the wires go themselves. To make sure the momentary switch only works when the main power toggle is on, you have to make sure that the power going to the momentary switch is from the toggle, not the circuit panel. I'll try my hand at a wiring diagram. Here goes nothing...
Here's my best attempt at a wiring diagram:
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Thank you guys for sticking this out with me and my long post. I will add a link to a video or something that I plan on making so you can visually see where everything went, and of course, how it sounds! Stay tuned.
--Cow
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