Losing the horn (BEWARE)

[Flipper]

Excuse the pun

I had a close call last night, The horn broke off my baggy, The mounting plate snapping at the frame mount point. Not too serious in itself, but

The horn wedged between the mudguard and the radiator, restricting handle bar movement. Fortunately I was travelling very slowly at the time.

The only damage was a few scratches on the mudguard, but it could have been much worse, I feel very fortunate I didn't damage the radiator or crash

[DAVID THOMPSON]

all riders should give there bike as i call it the eyeball inspection
at least weekly and more often if you do lots of daily miles

i have had the horn mounting spring thing go 2 times over the years
on old bmw bikes with lots of miles on them and my 66 yamaha ym1
lost one
but not any of the mz's yet

[simon duval smith]

I had the same thing. The original design horn mounting is very poor - has a sharp ned in it which is a perfect (stupid) stress raiser. Mine broke, scratched the front mudguard and hung there by its wires for quite a while. I drilled out the rivets, dismantled the whole thing, cleaned out all the rust, pop-riveted it back together and made a bracket out of two layers of thin stainless plate. Better with two layers as lets the horn vibrate properly and after adjustment mine is very loud. Crappy Italian horn though, find a better one if you can.

[MSW]

You know what they say: "two's a coincidence, three's a manufacturing defect." (Come on, I'll bet someone has said that before.)

Same exact thing happened to my 2005 Baggy last year. Bracket broke right at the angle. Good news was it dangled by the wire, so the horn itself didn't get lost or caught in the steering mechanism. Bad news was it just hung by the wire, swinging back and forth, scratching my mudguard repeatedly.

If you've got a Baggy, inspect the horn bracket before it's too late. You can probably reinforce it yourself.

[Drew]

For those of you in the USA, please PLEASE file a claim with the NHTSA about this problem. It does appear serious enough to warrant a complaint at the very least.

File here with the NHTSA