Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Monty Gets a Pair of New Hooters

A pair of man size Hi/Lo Lucas Windtones replace the weedy little modern single horn Morgan inflicted on Monty from new.



The rather thin shrill monotone screech is now the correct tuneful twin tone sound of the 1950's & 60's

https://youtube.com/shorts/FPy-N9B8W-E?feature=share



Lucas Windtones.... the Paverotti of hooters

Nice pair

Very nice. Could you share a bit on the install process?

I fitted set of Fiamm twins, they have more of higher pitch sound than Monty’s hooters

The physical installation is straightforward enough, the logical placement for the big Windtones is the void behind the grill, the horns are huge but there is enough space.



However, as with all horns they're sensitive to water ingress so they should be fitted trumpet mouths facing down, currently I've fitted them up which is far from ideal but this was all I could achieve with the bracketry I had to hand.




For the avoidence of any doubt, do not fit them as above, this weekend I'll be remounting the Windtones so the trumpet mouths face down, I just need to buy some additional hardware to make that happen.

The factory arrangement is a switched ground to sound the horns, there are also two ignition switched +12v supplies in the loom so you can easily fit two horns, however, the Lucas Windtones are big ol current hungry monsters so I figured a relay was in order. I'm aware he'd been through this job before I messaged RichardV6 to sense check the installation and he suggested the same, with the additional advice to use a diode relay.



As it happens all I had in stock were diode relays anyway as when wiring engine management they're essential, obviously you need to respect the diode path as shown above but it's definitely a wise choice. Now, fortunately as Morgan provides two +12v feeds you can use one of them to energise the coil and the other as the load side of your diode relay, I then simply used the existing switch to ground wire from the horn push to ground the relay coil.

I didn't want the relay sitting behind the grill for two reasons, firstly it would be tricky to get to if it failed, and secondly it would likely fail early due to water ingress so I positioned it under the bonnet above the rad where its protected, this necessitated building an extension loom which was straightforward enough. Unfortunately I suffered a dead short which I actually traced to one of the original factory female spade terminals, its transparent insulation had broken open exposing the bare terminal beneath.



Once I'd fixed that, which I'm glad I found as it would have certainly given me trouble in the future even if I'd left the single factory horn in place, the twin Windtones came to life with no issue at all. However, before I tested the setup I did also upgrade the factory 10a fuse to 15a, reminded by RichardV6 I agreed this was wise as like I say the Windtones are big ol current hungry monsters.

I've probably made it sound more complicated than it is, and I won't lie the dead short had me scratching my head for a while, but once I traced and rectified it all came good and I actually feel adding a relay is better than the way Morgan wired the horns, best of all adding a relay is noninvasive as you can repurpose the existing horn wiring in the loom as described above.

Adding old school twin tone horns is a bit of vanity really, but the difference between a pair of Lucas Hi/Lo Windtones and the single factory fitted screecher is night and day, and for me a car like a Morgan absolutely must have that 1950's/60's 'Parp, Parp' sound when you turn up at your Le Mans campsite and you want to tell your friends you've arrived.



https://youtube.com/shorts/FPy-N9B8W-E?feature=share

Good result Dave Glad you are fitting the trumpets facing downwards. TBH this was something on your first mounting that grated with me although this is my first mention

Cheers Richard

My temporary mounts will be extended, but as the horn mounting holes are at the opposite end to the trumpet mouths the bracketry will end up being longer than I'd like, the Windtones are heavy so to mount them rigidly I also plan to add side bracing in the form of brackets from each inner wing that'll better support each horn.

This would have required both time and some additional hardware I just didn't have, so I installed the Windtones upside down for the time being, this allowed me to focus on wiring up the Windtones and as it turns out chasing down the dead short.

I'll post some images of the final install once completed, however, for the time being I'm super happy with the relay setup as in my opinion it's better than the way Morgan wired the single horn, and I'm even happier with the sound improvement, in my humble opinion a classic car absolutely must have an appropriate classic horn note.

I literally cringed every time I heard that single squeaker

FWIW I fitted the redundant OE matched twin tone horns from my Roadster to my old Land Rover. Surprised at the improvement giving the impression of a much larger vehicle over the puny single horn previously fitted.

Richard ... I fitted a Russian truck airhorn to my race tow van (often travel back overnight up the motorway and had a few scares with dozy foreign truckers drifting lanes) ....it now gives the impression of a two mile long American freight train ... definitely focuses the attention! 🙂

K

Have you noticed any rise in coolant temperature (hardly likely in winter I guess?) at all?

The empirical rule is anything in front of the main radiator blanks off the square of its area, On a car where cooling is marginal (Rover engined +8s etc ) this might be an issue.

That is why I mounted my twin tones below the valence tray.