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How To: Megaphone under hood install

2K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  yoman444 
#1 · (Edited)
Hey guys, after a quick search I didn’t find anything quite like what I did to my xterra a few weeks back to I thought I would share.

This will work for and 2nd gen xterra.

FOR 1ST GEN's:
After looking at a picture of a 1st gen engine compartment, i think this could work if you installed it on the left side of the compartment (left side while looking under the hood, not in drivers seat.)
If anyone wants to try to do this in a 1st gen, please post your results as i am interested in if it would work.

YOU WILL NEED:
-Megaphone
-A thin piece of metal that is pre-bent or that you can bent to make a sort of “Z shape” . It should be able to fit whatever bracket your horn has. I got mine from Home Depot.
-Nuts, Bolts, Drill, Drillbits
-Extra 12 gauge wire
-Crimper
-Crimping connectors
-Wire stripper
-Optional: Black spray paint
-Optional: Soldering iron, solder
-Optional: Aux cord that you wont want to use for anything else


On a scale of 1 to 10 this mod is at most a 3 and should take more than a couple of hours. It can be done by yourself after work if you know what youre doing. It also should cost you more than $25, unless you decide to go with a high end megaphone(some sell for $250).

The megaphone will go UNDER the hood, what the megaphone has in terms of sirens/ microphone/ aux cable depends on what you buy/ how you mod it.

STEP 1: BUY THE MEGOPHONE:
I got mine from newegg for $20. You can go more expensive if youd like but make sure the megaphone itself isn’t gigantic, it still needs to fit under the hood. This is the one I got:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2C51G95305

I know it says 300Db, which is completely incorrect, probably closer to ~100. 300 decibels would be like the “Krakatau volcanic eruption 1883. Cracked one foot thick concrete at 300 miles, created a 3000 foot tidal wave, and heard 3100 miles away, sound pressure caused barometers to fluctuate wildly at 100 miles indicating levels of 190db at that distance from blast site. Rocks thrown to a height of 34 miles.”

Anyway, a police siren is 120db but those cost more. Mine is plenty loud for communicating with people on offroad trails, playing music when hanging out on the campground, or being a hood rat and messing with people around you(Please don’t do this).

STEP 2: (**OPTIONAL**) MODDING THE MEGAPHONE:

When I got my megaphone, I wanted it to be able to play music from my phone, so I added an aux cord.

-Unscrew the case

-Use a multimeter in Continuity mode to find two good solder points

-Snip one end of the aux cord to expose the wires

-Strip wires and solder the black and red wires to one point(megaphone is mono so it doesn’t matter that theyre together)

-Solder the third wire in the aux cord, which in my case had a weird kind of paper insulation, to the second solder point.

-Drill a hole in the side of the case for the aux cord to go through.
Seal everything back up and youre in business. You can test your horn using a 9 volt battery.

Here is a video of the horn with music in action:
http://youtu.be/DvNzKXZbzEQ

Please note that in the video my aux cord is still intact and I used to normal wires wrapped around the aux cord. This is because I didn’t want to ruin my cord by cutting it and then having it not work, so I tested it with the wires. You can take this precautionary step if you’d like, but it is not necessary. I was going off nothing but a good understanding of electronics so I didn’t want to mess anything up.

Here is a pic of it once its done:


STEP 3:BENDING THE METALl
I bent the sheet metal using a vice and a hammer. your bends should look like the pictures.

Sorry if its hard to see, I didn’t plan on making the how to when I was first doing it so I have to take all the pictures on the finished product.

This horizontal part was 6 inches on mine, but this is the least important measurement as long as it fits your mount.


This bend should be a little over 1”


The part that actually gets screwed in should be about 1.5”


Here is a picture from before I mounted it and spraypainted it.


**NOTE** In all the pictures the horn is already screwed in to the mount, DO NOT do this yet, I just didn’t take pictures along every step.

STEP 4: (OPTIONAL) Spraypaint your metal

-Take it outside, give it two coats, let it dry.


STEP 5: ATTACH MEGAPHONE TO MOUNT:

This is simple

-Use a drill to get the holes the right size(Depends on horn)

-Put washers and nuts on.

Make sure its nice and secure, see pic:


STEP 6: ATTACH MOUNT TO HOOD.

-First you will need to find the actual mounting spot. The best spot is at the back right part of the hood. There is a nice big cavity.

-To make sure you center the horn in the cavity, use a long piece of painters tape, put it upside down where the hood presses against the seal on the bottom part of the car, and lightly put two small pieces of tape sticky side down to hold the upside down piece in place. (Imagine horn wasn’t there in picture)


-Next, close the hood and reopen it. The upside down piece of tape should have stuck nicely to the top of the hood. Next find where you want the center of the horn to go (it should be the center of the cavity) either by eyeballing it or by a more accurate eyeballing method (holding a piece of string and running it along the tape until you think you see the center of the cavity).



Obviously the smaller the horn the more wiggle room you will have to be inaccurate with your eyeballing.

-Next drill the holes in your hood. BE CAREFUL. The hood has two pieces of metal. YOU ONLY WANT TO DRILL THOUGH THE BOTTOM PIECE SO SCREWS DON’T STICK OUT OF THE TOP OF YOUR HOOD.

-Make sure the fit is tight, as there is no way to but nuts on the other end of the screw. Mine is holding up just fine.(Ignore the wire, that is in the next step)


STEP 7 WIRING:

-run the ground to any of the 3 screws used to mount the assembly to the hood Simply wrap the bare wire around the screw and then screw it in. See picture from previous step.

-Run the hot to the positive end of the battery, once again loosen a screw from the positive terminal and wrap the wire around, retighten. make it look nice. You may need to extend the wire, use a crimper to do this.

Tidy wires:


Crimping connector:


-Next you will need to run the wire that connects to the controller to the inside of the car. Use this hole:



You should be able to pull the wire through by lifting up the cloth behind the pedals:



STEP 8: MOUNTING THE CONTROLLER:

- I had a piece of plastic in place of where a button could go next to my offroad lamp button.

-Take it out

-Drill two small holes in it and attach the controller mount

-Put it back in.


Obviously you can mount yours where ever you want, this is just what I thought was the best spot.

STEP 8.5: STOP WIRE FROM HITTING YOUR LEG.

-The wire would always swing and hit my leg as I would drive, so I attached a rubber band to something up behind the steering wheel and ran the wire though it. This keeps the wire from hanging but still allows you to putt the controller up to your face.
http://i.imgur.com/iCoe8KZ.jpg

STEP 9: ADMIRING YOUR WORK




I know this was a long write up but I wanted it to be as detailed as possible. It really isn’t that difficult.
ENJOY!
Imgur album can be seen here: http://imgur.com/a/iKHmv
 
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