Bloody horn.

The guys on the Vstar forum wanted a look once I had it mounted..

Currently it's mounted on the floor along with all the tools and shit I had with me all day.

I spent about 4 hours mucking around mounting it, had it looking all schmick, finished up the wiring, gave it a test burst, and it was crap.

I dunno what the problem is, I suspect it's because I had the unit mounted on it's side, with the horns facing forwards, but on the box it shows a mounting diagram, and the unit can't be more than 25 degrees away from having the horns facing down, and with the cylinder vertical (I had it 90 degrees on both of these).

In true chinglish style, it says "Caution!" but doesn't say of what to be cautious about.

The couple of test runs I did when it first turned up, I had it within the limits of the mounting diagram, and it was f'ing loud. (I assumed this was just to avoid water getting in the horn).

I spent a little while fiddling around trying to work out how to mount it so it's got the right orientation, but it's a mongrel, I'm going to have to work out how to make a mount for it.

I just found their website, at stebel.it. click on products, then the dirtbike icon, then "nautilus series" to see it.

I won a horn auction on eBay a few days ago, and it turned up today.

I mucked around trying to give it a blast, but I don't have a power supply big enough.

I thought I could use the 5amp power supply I've got, which I lent dad to charge the car with a few days ago, but it doesn't seem to work.. I opened it, and the components between the transformer and the terminals have blown up (don't remember if they were diodes or caps or something).

I tried running it off a 2amp supply, but it just warbled.

I gave up in the end, and grabbed the SLA battery out of my bike, and gave it a blast.

My god, it's the loudest thing I've ever heard.

Now I have to find a way to fit it to my bike, I think it will fit in the front, behind the wheel.

I thought about riding to work today, it's not raining too heavily.

It'd be just my luck though, I'd have a prang because of the waxy tyres or whatever (I've still not ridden since getting my bike back after the service).

So I took the train again, and wasted more time.

On the way home, there was a huge prang on the freeway. If I'd ridden, I probably would have been invoolved in it, since I'm usually right where it happened, when it happened, when I ride.

Apparently a couple of cars had a small accident, but it stopped the whole freeway, and then an unregistered overloaded truck came down the hill and plowed into 35 cars stopped behind the first accident. One of the cars caught on fire, and the woman driver was killed.

There's a news article about it here.

Went in to work today. Took the train again though, because it's still raining, and I'm not used to the adjusted brake and clutch levers, and the tyres are still waxy.

Another 2 1/2 hours wasted on the way there.

I didn't go to work today, I put my bike in for a service.

I'd mentioned I was doing this to my mate, in case I could get a lift home.

I rode around to the bike place, and dropped off my bike, about 9am.

My mate works night shift fairly often, so I didn't want to wake him, so I just sent an sms to say I'd dropped my bike off, in case he'd come to give me a lift home.

I started walking home, didn't hear anything from him, got all the way home.

I sat around for a while at home, just filling in time.

I wandered back to the bike place about 1pm, it takes me close to an hour to walk around there. It pissed down with rain on the way back, and I got piss wet through.

They'd put the new tyres on, I knew the back tyre I had was bald, but I didn't realise how bad it was until I saw it off the bike, it was totally stuffed.

They hadn't dyno tuned it, or mucked around with the jets or needles or anything, because the intake manifold seals were stuffed. They'd told me that last time I got it serviced, around 45000km, but I couldn't remember what it was I needed.

They'd put the K&N filter in too.

I paid for the service, and paid to back order the seals I needed, because the Yamaha dealer only had one of them.

I rode it home carefully, because the new tyres are all waxy, and they'd also adjusted the front brake cable (it had been really loose, and I could put the brake lever right in to the bar, now it would have locked up). The clutch cable had been adjusted too, I meant to mention that the clutch had been slipping, they'd noticed that.

Luckily the road was really busy on the way home, a traffic jam, so I pretty much walked the bike home, I had my foot down on the road more than on the foot peg.

I went into work today, still raining, can't ride anywhere.

Got the train to work, took 2 1/2 hours to get there. Ugh.

Didn't go to work today, it was raining, and my back tyre is so bald I wouldn't be able to get my bike down the driveway without stacking it.

I just hung around at home.

I took off from work a bit earlier than usual, around 4.30.

I got some fuel, then went up to my mates place.

I stopped in at the bottle shop on the way, grabbed a six pack, and then went to McDonalds, and sat and had some dinner, it was now about 6.50pm.

I headed up to my mate's place from there and we sat and watched some of a couple of The Who dvds and had a few beers before my mate's dad gave us a lift up to the Beachcomber at Toukley.

We grabbed a drink and sat and chatted, waiting for the section downstairs to open.

About 7.50pm, there was an announcement that the opening act was not going to be appearing, because they were "stuck on the freeway".

Some chick near us said that in reality it was because they forgot.

We had another couple of drinks, I played the pokies, only wasted a dollar.

About 9pm we went down, paid, and came back up to wait because there was only roadies in setting up still.

We finished our drinks, and headed back downstairs.

It's a pretty small venue, it's good.

We found a place to stand at the bar and waited for the opening act to come on.

It was a band called Neon, they weren't bad.

They played for about 1/2 hour, then went off, and it was about another 1/2 hour while the roadies swapped the gear out.

We went right up the front, and it was good.

Rocket Science came on, and the guy playing the organ had an accident earlier this year, and they cancelled the rest of their tour, he still seemed to be a bit out of it.

The music was really good though, and everyone in there was cool, just minding their own business.

There was no fights, but some chick near us got dragged out by security for some reason though, but it was done subtly and my mate didn't even see it.

my mate met some girl, but he didn't have his phone or a pen, so after the concert she gave me her number for him.

We bought tshirts, and then we left.

There were no taxis, so we just started walking back to the main road.

We walked for about an hour, so probably about 6km. My mate asked my about 400 times if I had the phone number.

Eventually a taxi came past, and we flagged it down, and went back to the house.

I gave him the number as soon as we got back so he'd stop asking about it.

We sat around for a bit, I grabbed my stuff, and took off.

I noticed the bulb behind my speedo had blown, great, no idea what speed I'm going.

I got home about 2.45am, there was a little bit of rain on the way home.

I went to bed.

I woke up about 6.45am, it was pissing down with rain, don't think I'm going to work today.

I woke up again about 9.30, it had stopped raining, and the road was just starting to dry up, I probably could have gone to work, but I fell asleep again, and didn't wake up until about 10.30am, and then I wouldn't have got to work until after midday, I didn't see the point.