Finished the rebuild...

[vileneeds]

'78 XS11 standard. So, it starts every time cold with no usage of the choke. idle is either a hair fast or slow and without the means to synch it, it will have to do. I rewired this thing and now it needs a horn and blinkers. I have hard bags from a bagger for the blinkers, the horn is what i can not find. I know I am looking right at it but i may have a form of buck fever andcan not seem to find it. Where is it? and what would anyone suggest for cheap replacement should it proove useless?

[CatatonicBug]

The horns are round disks about 4" across. Just look on ebay for XS1100 horns and you'll find plenty of them. I'm not sure what models had single horns and what models had dual horns though. I think the '79 just had a single one though.

[crazy steve]

...the horn is what i can not find. I know I am looking right at it but i may have a form of buck fever and can not seem to find it. Where is it?

Right below the fork neck and behind/between the down tubes.... really tucked in there. If you're planning on running a fairing, you should look into a aftermarket horn of some sort.

The '80-up bikes had dual horns, but you can't retrofit those as the early frame lacks the mounting bracket.

[vileneeds]

thank you.

I am going to get that horn fixed today. Pics to follow.

[cywelchjr]

Right below the fork neck and behind/between the down tubes.... really tucked in there. If you're planning on running a fairing, you should look into a aftermarket horn of some sort.

The '80-up bikes had dual horns, but you can't retrofit those as the early frame lacks the mounting bracket.

Wow, then how do you mount a Vetter fairing on the early bikes? Mine mounts to the horn mounts on the frame, and the horns relocate to the fairing mount. If there is no mount for a second horn on the early frames, that would mean no place for the Vetter mount to bolt up to on the top.

[CatatonicBug]

My horns mount inside the edges of the frame down-tubes, on a flat piece that sticks up from the cross-member between the down-tubes. That flat piece also supports the brake line (metal tube) from the rear MC to the front left caliper. The fairing bracket mounts to the tapped holes in the front of the down-tubes.

I assume the early model frames don't have the flat piece attached to the cross member running between the down-tubes?

[planedick]

Early models

Mine is an E and it has the peice for mounting the fairing. Can't get much earlier than that.

[cywelchjr]

And you can mount dual horns to that, if it's the same as the later models, the only problem would be having only wiring for a single horn, you would have to split it out for the second horn. Maybe they mount the horn by default in the different location on the earlier models? If so, just move it and add another and do the wiring needed for the second one. As long as the mounting points for a fairing mount are there, you have what's used to mount the horns, at least on an 80G. That would IMHO work for any that have that mounting point and it seem like a good spot as it points them forward towards the id10t's you want to hear them anyways.

[crazy steve]

Here's a pic of the horn mount on the frame...
[IMG][/IMG]
... and the bracket that attaches to it...
[IMG][/IMG]

This is typical as far as I know for all '80-up US bikes. There's two versions of the horn bracket (special and standard) but they're very similar. This is standard for the european bikes by the way...

The '78-79 US bikes lack the frame bracket as shown. Instead, there's a bracket on the right side backbone tube (opposite of and very similar to the ballast resistor bracket) that the single horn hang off of. The frame bracket shown has been slightly modified to accept a single horn; the mounting holes are almost exactly the same distance apart as any two rivets holding the factory horns together. Drill the rivets out, put in a couple of 1/4-20 screws, and bolt the horn up...

[CatatonicBug]

Interesting! I had no idea that bracket existed. Mine are attached directly to the 2 holes in the first picture. I like it a lot more than when they stick out like dumbo ears! Then again, Cy's method of using the tapped holes in the front of the down-tubes would work too, as long as you enlarge the holes in the horn mounting tabs.

[cywelchjr]

So the 78-79 US bikes don't have a mounting point for the Vetter fairing bracket to fasten to? That bracket is where the fairing bracket mounts to, without that bracket, there is no upper mounting point for the bracket, and I'm not aware of a different bracket for different years. This has me a bit confused.

I know you have a vetter bracket, so how does it mount to the early frame?

[CatatonicBug]

The fairing bracket does NOT mount to that horn bracket. The fairing bracket mounts directly to the frame, bolted to the 2 tapped forward-facing holes in the frame down-tubes. That horn bracket has nothing to do with the fairing.

[subike]

Those two tapped holes in the front frame down tubes ,
are there for the oil cooler mount,
both my Std E's have oil coolers,
But I can see how a faring mount could be attached to these. and still have the oil cooler, and the horns mounted to them, just simply a longer bolt.
As for horn, there are many availabile as said, any jap bike horn will do the job, it does not take an engineer to make a bracket to fit them.
As for the wiring, well, how many horns do you want, wired in serries is also a no brainer.
If you only have the factory wiring for a single horn, want two, then simpley run the second horn in series off of the first.
No a relay will not be needed, as there is no relay for the twin horn set up.

[natemoen]

Sue, the cooler and the fairing use the same mounting holes.

[cywelchjr]

The fairing bracket does NOT mount to that horn bracket. The fairing bracket mounts directly to the frame, bolted to the 2 tapped forward-facing holes in the frame down-tubes. That horn bracket has nothing to do with the fairing.

Ok, looking this morning I can see that. I never noticed that because mine came with the fairing already mounted and the horns already relocated. I didn't even know that horn mount even existed. I thought they mounted there the fairing mount bolts up, shows how wrong I can be. So I guess that 79 and earlier US bikes don't need the horn relocated when installing a fairing since the horn isn't in the same place.