Train horn

Most times I will honk at a kid giving me the sign to honk, but not always, depending on where we are at.
I learned a valuable lesson back in the 70's about honking an air horn. I was sitting at a redlight behind a blazer at a busy intersection, when a kid i the back motioned for me to honk. I was 19 at the time and foolishly honked it, the lady driving it gassed it and run right out in the middle of the intersection causing cars to dodge her and shut it down from both directions. I have been pretty selective about when I get on an air horn ever since.
There is no law that you have to have an air horn, the little beeper on the wheel qualifies and is all I honk when getting a dot inspection anyway.

 

What about other trucks? Because I love asking other trucks to hit their air horn. Breaks up the boredom driving across some of these ranches. 45 minutes to do 5 miles sucks

 

A horn is required by the regulations, it doesn't matter if it's the air horn or the city horn, you are just required to have a working horn.

 

man that would be great to have on swift when he starts backing up LOL

 

Years ago, we had what was called a cb, worked well for things like that.
I have a log truck and will sometimes be 2 hours or more one way on an old log road at slow speed, I can't for the life of me remember honking at another truck in a case like that. I have met some in the middle of switch back curves, when they didn't call out their location, or didn't realize where they were, but sure didn't have time to be messing with a horn in those cases. Even worse and really more often, I would meet a dog team in a blind switch back, I would have loved to lay on the horn long enough to drain my air tanks, but like I said no time till after it is all over with.

 

I was of the understanding it is illegal to use an air horn in city limits. Maybe that is just the cities law? I have seen DOT write up many trucks with an inoperative city horn but never an air horn?

 

No.

 

If you're gonna mount a train horn to your rig, get a proper one and not one of those chromed truckstop train horns. They don't sound anything like the Real McCoy and they'll fall apart within a year. An actual cast steel horn from the likes of Leslie or Nathan will sound better and is likely to survive longer than the truck it's mounted on. You're gonna pay a fair bit more for one, though.

There was a guy on eBay who hit a nice middleground selling PVC train horn replicas he made himself. They had that authentic sound for a fraction of the price. I bought one that I kept on my last company's truck for a year. It's sitting in my garage collecting dust atm because my current employer doesn't have a sense of humor about that kind of thing, lol.

 

I have a set of 5 bells, you need to run big enough line for sure. I use a spring loaded ball valve. Its self closing, sucks when your tryin to get the noise shut down and your hand slips off the handle. Yea it happens lol.


They say without proper paperwork that they are illegal to have or own whatever. No one has ever said anything about mine in any inspection etc. Course they could tomorrow.

 

I installed 4 trumpet with half inch line and trolley valve next to seat. They are loud but if I open the valve completely, it’s almost as if the horns can’t take the volume of air and they get quieter. What is causing this? No air leaks anywhere in the system. Maybe the horns aren’t up to par. Got from big rig chrome shop