In my haste to deconstruct the wagon 8 years ago I must have tossed the horns in one of the junk boxes in the barn,,now I'm ready to wire up the horns and I'm not sure if I even have '54 Ford horns or not. I found a pair of each horn,,one small pair the other large,,I need confirmation,is ether one of these correct? And If someone could take a photo of how and where they mount you would make my day! HRP
the bigger one looks simular to the on es on my 50 and 57 the samaller one looks like the one on my 69 mustang ...if that helps
Neither horn look like a 54 to me. They mount behind the grille on the front of the core support on each side of the radiator.
Hey HRP! i took the best pictures i could from underneath while the are still hooked to car hope they help its hard to get arm in there.....if you need me to tomorrow i can take them off and take better pictures if you need....these are on my 54 ford sedan the one you have pictured on the left looks like the same thing to me and the bracket looks the same as mine also! Notice the four bolts heads in the center of the horn coil on the one you have pictured on the left and the same four bolts heads in center of horn coil on mine
you are correct on where they mount, but if you look at them from the top they look like a dome,looking from the bottom they look like what is pictured! here is a picture of where they are mounted , not much room to get a picture but i tried to take a general reference point of where they are located, i only took a picture of one side, this is the right side if your looking at the motor from outside the car, right to the left of this picture is the radiator you can see the support in the picture, the horn is mounted behind the grill to the sheetmetal that makes up the radiator core support you can see the silver nut going thur the bracket...and the other horn is mounted in the same exact spot on the opposite side of radiator.......HRP! now looking at the bracket that mounts to horn,it is made of two pieces that bolt together the part that bolts to the horn looks the same as mine,but the other part that bolts to the core support looks diffrent then yours ,this might be a slight difference between the wagon and sedans but should mount in the general location, the wires that connects the horns together runs under the sheetmetal pan that makes up the hood latch mechanism, there should be some wire clips/hangers under there.
Unless you're restoring the car to original why would you care what the horns are from? Use what you have that works and is loud
Well I have 2-1956 horns, and Id like to keep it as original as possible.......so back to my question, will they work and can they be rebuilt?
6V horns work fine on 12 Vs as long as you are not the asshole that lays on the horn a split second after the light changes. They usually are very loud. The 6V Mopar horns will wake the dead on 12Vs. How many times do you blow the horn? I use it to say hi to a friend or wake up the lady with the cell phone but never more than beep-beep. If you like to give long lasting beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeps, then it might burn out prematurely. Just like a 6V starter on 12Vs, if the engine is tuned right and starts without a lot of continued cranking it will last forever. If not don't fret it. And no I've never heard of anyone rebuilding a horn. Too many of them in the junk yards for that.
If you seen the 54 ford wagon "HRP" ended up putting the mustang horns on ,it basically is a restored car if you ever get a chance should look at link the link to his build, it is amazing what he started with and where its at now, just plan amazing! I have the original 6 volt horns on my 54 ford running 12volt...sounds like a locomotive train horn!!
I did look at his wagon. Yes it's nice. But it isn't original so why be concerned about whether the horns are or not? I'm sure that 99.9% of the people who look at it wouldn't know the difference in horns and most of those that do would be upset because the rest of the car isn't all original
OK, I took the two horns and put them on a 12V battery to see if they work. When I touch the lead to the battery i just get a small thump noise. They have been sitting for years. Anyone experienced this? Im pretty sure they are stuck, I'm just not sure what is stuck nor how to go about freeing it. I have had the cover off but everything seems to be riveted together.....
OK,let's not get too excited about horns,,the only reason I was gonna use them is because I knew I had them somewhere and the are extremely LOUD I don't think they can be rebuilt the did use a relay,,that might make a difference. Yeah,,they are LOUD! Thank you sir for your comments,, I came to the conclusion that the original horns were to large to install between the radiator support and grill which I had already spent several hours installing so I opted for a set of Mustang horns that are now cleaned,painted and mounted in the original location,,and a big plus is they fit behind the grill without having to remove it again! HRP