Hella Supertones - install tips/suggestions?

[nosirrahg]

For Christmas this year I got a set of Hella Supertones horns to replace the weak factory horn on my 2008 Patriot. I'm not especially skilled when it comes to automotive electronics, so I'm looking for any advice I can get on not only wiring these things properly, but also in suggested placement on the Jeep.

I've read through the limited instructions that came with them, and I have a rough idea of what's involved, but I'm pretty sure this is going to mean removing the front bumper cover to even get started. Knowing that might take a bit of time, I'd like to have as much of my game plan down as I can in advance so I don't end up having to stop halfway through and put everything back on because I forget something and run out of time (since this is my daily driver).

Placement-wise I want to be certain I don't block the sound (which probably means putting them somewhere in the grill area), but I'm also a little concerned about placing them so low that they might get underwater in some backroad situations, but likewise don't want them front-and-center in my grill to draw too much attention to themselves (I've toyed with painting the bright red portion flat black if it comes to that). But I"m hoping maybe someone else here has either done this before, or has at least maybe had their bumper cover off and might have some good suggestions for placement. I don't have fog lights and thought about seeing if they'd mount somewhere around those insets, but again that might end up being too low to the ground to be effective and/or keep dry.

Anyway, any thoughts/tips/suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Once I actually get going I'll try to take pictures along the way and post things here so others can learn from my experience.

[nosirrahg]

Well, after installing my new stereo (including an additional HD tuner and hand-free phone mic), as well as my Hellas, I know a bit more about automotive wiring than I did before!

I know there were many who read my original thread but no one added any comments, which I'm interpreting as "I wish I knew, but I have no idea." So I'm going to try to post some photos and comments here of my install.

First of all, here's an overview picture of where I installed the new horns. Once you get the bumper cover off, you'll see that unless you mount the horns in place of the factory one (which isn't optimum) there really aren't that many options without having to fabricate some type of mount. I went the easy way out and used the existing bolts for the hood latch, which provided just enough room for the horns to fit.



Here's a closer up view of the horn on the driver's side, which also shows there is an existing opening in the rubber fabric for the hood latch cable, so I was able to run my new wiring through here. I did end up cutting a couple of slits in this rubber directly behind the horns, since this fabric made things a little too snug on the wiring connections. FWIW I used 12 gauge wire throughout; I'd found mention of installs online ranging from 10 gauge to 14 gauge, so I split the difference and went with 12.



If you follow those cable on through the opening, you come in here under the hood. You can see an obvious ground bolt to the right, so that's where I grounded both horns. You can also see the quick splice I used on the positive cable to branch that out to both horns; I specifically made that splice on the interior side of the rubber fabric, since I felt like this quick splice was probably the weak link in the whole setup (so the more protection I could give it from the elements, the better).



Here's an overhead view of where I mounted the horns. In a perfect world I might have used some type of spacer and/or longer bolts to move the horns more forward a bit, but honestly this seemed to work fine.



Before I locked in on this location I double-checked to make certain the hood operation wasn't compromised by the horns, and everything seemed to work as before. I never actually removed the hood latch mechanism or anything, just dealing with one side/horn at a time.



Here's the location of the factory horn, which is under the driver's side front fender. You can see it's a single-tone variety, and I also noticed it is pointed downwards, which likely doesn't help with the weak sound of the factory unit.



Here's more of a side view of the factory horn, where you can see I've disconnected the cable and attached it to the new horns. By adding a male quick connect to my new cable, I was able to use the factory wiring without doing any cutting/splicing of the factory work. This also allowed me to do some quick comparisons between the two horns before I put the bumper back on, by switching the wire from one to the other.



Here you can see where I mounted the relay that comes with the Hellas. Technically the instructions say to mount the relay with the connections pointing downward, but finding this readily accessible grounded bolt, directly above the battery and the factory horn, was too good to pass up. There are basically four wires you connect to the relay; one that goes to the two horns (the one with the quick splice from the earlier photo), one that connects to the factory horn switch (in the photo above), one that goes to the battery, and one that goes to a ground. For the ground I was able to just loop over to the bolt I'd mounted the relay on, though I did have to drill the opening in the relay out just slightly for it to fit on this bolt. For the wire to the battery, I also installed a fuse; you can see in this picture that I used a butt connector to make this wire a little longer. The fuse kit I bought would have actually reached from the battery to the relay with no splicing, but there wasn't much slack there, and I felt that when the battery was disconnected for whatever reason down the road there'd be potential for damage to the horn relay, so I added in some slack for peace of mind.



Here's a closer view of the fuse connector and the battery; note that I used shrink wrap on all the connections to try to assure weather-tight connections. I used a 20-amp fuse based on things I'd read from other installs; the instructions that came with the horns were quite vague on this point.



Once everything was tested and all was well, I put the bumper cover back on (which is much easier than taking it off!) and made sure there weren't any problems with clearance anywhere. Here's a shot of the horns from above with the bumper cover installed.



And here's an overhead shot of the relay after the bumper cover was put back on; as you can see this location causes no problems with the bumper cover (or anything else for that matter).



Finally here's a shot of the grill after the install, where you can just see the horns peeking out. I really didn't want them installed where they'd draw too much attention to themselves, so if they'd been more visible I'd be tempted to paint the red portions black. But as it turned out they're not really visible at all, but they have fairly direct access to the front of the vehicle (so the sound doesn't seem muffled or blocked at all).



I don't have a laundry list of materials I purchased, but I know I used less than 24' of wire (had about 1' left of a 24' roll), 1 male quick connect, about 8 female quick connects, one butt connector, 4 1/4" ring connectors, and a weatherproof fuse holder (and a fuse). Plus the shrink wrap, and a lighter to shrink it, and a wire stripping/crimping tool (which I already had). I think I probably spent @ $45 in parts and such, but just because you end up buying a box of a dozen of each of these things, and you only need a few (plus I bought two rolls of wire, just in case). But as long as everything you buy is of the same gauge, it isn't too complicated a project (if you can get the bumper cover off!).

[Afmcronnie]

Originally Posted by nosirrahg

I'm also a little concerned about placing them so low that they might get underwater in some backroad situations,

Nice write-up and pics!

I would think that if you get that 2wd deep enough in water to drown the horns you got more serious issues to be concerned about than sounding like a duck...