Having gone through a few dangerous situations on the [crazy] roads of
Moscow, I realized that I need a louder horn. I mean a really loud one.
A quick search on the Internet revealed a few candidates, so I ordered the most compact one - Stebel Nautilus Compact. This is an air horn meaning it has a high-pressure air compressor blowing into two acoustic chambers. The horn came with an angular mounting bolt as an extra option.
I would prefer my horn not to be easily visible from outside, as I value and wish to preserve the natural beauty of Yamaha FJR1300 design. It is also a questionable topic if local traffic regulations allow for stock horns modification.
So I removed upper cowling panels (A, B, C, D) of my Gen I FJR and found a cozy spare space featuring a mounting hole (follow red arrow) under panels A&B:
(you can also see Nautilus's relay already mounted with stock bolt on the photo above).
I picked a 240x80x1mm sheet of steel at a local hardware store then cut/bent a custom mounting bracket from it. You can see it from different angles:
Bracket mounted on bike, red arrow points to the mounting bolt:
Nautilus horn bolted to bracket, front cowling removed for clarity (it's not really necessary):
View from the rear:
Close-up view from above with cowling and A panel back on bike:
Update: about 50K km and two years later, my Nautilus developed an issue -- its axle bearings went loose what caused rotor to stick. I suspect it may be due to its horizontal mounted -- something what is not recommended by the manufacturer, or a considerable amount of dirt collected along horn's inlet air opening and ultimately sucked into the bearings.
So I replaced broken Nautilus Compact with a new one. As a preventive measure I've also glued some thin fabric to cover horn's air inlet.
Update: I've come across a Chinese-made Nautilus Compact which is twice as cheap as the original. Not sure about its endurance, though.
A quick search on the Internet revealed a few candidates, so I ordered the most compact one - Stebel Nautilus Compact. This is an air horn meaning it has a high-pressure air compressor blowing into two acoustic chambers. The horn came with an angular mounting bolt as an extra option.
I would prefer my horn not to be easily visible from outside, as I value and wish to preserve the natural beauty of Yamaha FJR1300 design. It is also a questionable topic if local traffic regulations allow for stock horns modification.
So I removed upper cowling panels (A, B, C, D) of my Gen I FJR and found a cozy spare space featuring a mounting hole (follow red arrow) under panels A&B:
I picked a 240x80x1mm sheet of steel at a local hardware store then cut/bent a custom mounting bracket from it. You can see it from different angles:
Bracket mounted on bike, red arrow points to the mounting bolt:
Nautilus horn bolted to bracket, front cowling removed for clarity (it's not really necessary):
View from the rear:
Close-up view from above with cowling and A panel back on bike:
Update: about 50K km and two years later, my Nautilus developed an issue -- its axle bearings went loose what caused rotor to stick. I suspect it may be due to its horizontal mounted -- something what is not recommended by the manufacturer, or a considerable amount of dirt collected along horn's inlet air opening and ultimately sucked into the bearings.
So I replaced broken Nautilus Compact with a new one. As a preventive measure I've also glued some thin fabric to cover horn's air inlet.
Update: I've come across a Chinese-made Nautilus Compact which is twice as cheap as the original. Not sure about its endurance, though.
