The Horns

The horn had not worked in the Bugeye since we bought it – not very safe since the bugeye is one of the smallest things on the road. It was time to fix it. The horn itself when tested sounded very weak so I ordered a Hella twin tone horn kit. It came with mounting brackets and a relay for the price of $23.00!

Hella Twin Note Horns

Horn Wiring Diagram

My horn button is a little different from the original since I have a Moto-Lita wheel, but I ordered a new push pin for it – the 948 Bugeye variety. The pin needs to go into the wheel with the plastic end toward the dash so that the pin is insulated from the body of the aluminum wheel hub. Then the brass sprung pick up on the back of the horn button needs to line up with the pin. The entire assembly then pushes into the wheel hub. A brown wire from the brass contact ring on the dash cone runs to the horn relay.

Horn Button Contact

Steering Hub and Push Pin

I decided to mount both of the horns on the right front lower side of the frame. That way it was not necessary to run wiring across the frame below the radiator. On one horn I used the original mounting bracket, and on the other I used the supplied brackets and drilled two holes into the fresh air hose mounting assembly. I mounted the relay just above the horns.

Hella Horns Mounting Location

Horn Relay Mount

The wiring diagram provided on the box of the horn was helpful. I provided a separate ground wire for each horn. The brown ground wire from the wheel  was connected to terminal #85 on the relay. The green wire form the fuse panel was connected to terminal #86. A red wire was used to connect terminal #87 on the relay to the positive terminal on each horn. This required putting a twin bullet connecter on the wire from the relay to splice a second wire to go the 2nd horn. Finally, a blue wire was run from the non-switched side of the fuse block to the relay terminal #30 to complete the circuit.

The horn now works great! It sounds like the biggest car on the road.

The Rear View Mirror

The rear view mirror in the Bugeye wasn’t the original and it looked a little worse for wear so I replaced it with a new one from Moss. It wasn’t easy to get to the mounting screws because of the rake of the windscreen, so I bent a screw driver with a torch to make a tool that would do the trick. Worked like a charm!

New Rear View Mirror

New Tool

Flashlight

We used to carry a magnetic mounting flashlight under the cowl, but it never stayed very well. We picked up a mounting bracket for a light at VIR and I finally got around to installing it in the car. I selected the left rear mudguard as the location.

Flashlight Mounting