What is the correct color for a later xk-120 horn? Bob Exelby said in his book that the body was painted a black crackle finish, and so does Viart, although I understand Bob Exelby had an earlier type horn and in the Viart book, there is no reference to color by the depictions of the later horns, only the earlier one. To the extent mine have paint remaining, it looks to be glossy black inside and out on both the body of the horn and the cover. Since the car was in storage since 1965, it seems unlikely that the horns were refinished.
It may be they only know about some different eras.
I’ve seen plenty of Mark V / XK120 era horns with gloss black finish, but never one with crinkle.
My '38 SS horns have crinkle black bodies with chrome domes and trumpets.
Later heaters were crinkle.
I vote for and would stick with the gloss black. The horns tend to pick-up a fair amount of road dirt and a crinkle finish would not allow them to be wiped clean.
painted crackle on the base gloss on the removable hump
Uh oh, a split opinion. Neither Philip Porter’s book nor Urs Schmid’s commented on the color. Porter’s book had a picture of NOS horns right out of the box, but it was too small to see details of the black finish. I guess what puzzles me is that the inside of my horns is very clearly glossy black. The outside has much less remaining paint, as one would expect, but what is there also looks smooth and somewhat glossy. Could a crackle finish wear smooth over the years?
No, a crinkle finish would not wear smooth, and the inside of the trumpet would always be the same finish as the outside.
Here is my 1938 horn with crinkle, but remember this is a different model from yours.
I have another horn question, this one created by a rookie mistake on my part. While I carefully kept separate all the components for the high and low note horns, I assumed that the brackets that attach the horns to the chassis were identical, and did not keep them separate. Upon cleaning them up, I discovered that one has 5 layers of steel and one has 4. If you zoom in on the picture I think you can see the difference. Does it matter which one is attached to which horn, and if so, can someone tell me which goes with which? None of the books goes into that level of detail. The SPC lists only one part,
C.2947, and indicates that 2 are required. Is this a case of random mixing of parts in the manufacturing process, in which case it doesn’t matter which bracket goes with which horn?
Hmm, yet another anomaly.
I have four layers on both my WT614 horns on my 120 and both the WT614s on my Mark V,
but six on a pair of WT29 horns.
The 1951 Lucas catalogue shows two part numbers for the bracket.
They might be made of different thicknesses of steel sheet. It would make a difference in the resonant frequency. That would be something to investigate, and probably the Lucas engineers did investigate it.
Both types of horn have been seen on 120, generally WT29s on early cars and WT614s on later cars, so once again whoonoazz.
Interesting. It looks like for the WT614 model Lucas specified bracket 702606 for both the high note and the low note horn.
Yes, it looks like two layers per side (total four) is correct for both of yours.
The three per side version may have been designed for the earlier WT11 horns with really long trumpets, which would have wanted a stiffer mounting.
It may be that they reduced them from three to two on the smaller lighter horns to reduce vibration transmitted to the car, perhaps less harsh to the occupants.
I measured the steel on a couple of triple layer per side brackets at about .021-.023 inches each layer, i.e. measuring 3 at once at .063-.067 total.
My double per side brackets are installed on the cars where I can’t reach them to measure.
It looks like I am the proud owner of a rare 5 layer bracket. I saw no evidence that it originally had six with one subsequently broken; it looks like it was made with 5. At least I don’t feel so dumb for assuming that both sides were the same. From what I can tell, then, it must have been an assembly anomaly, not a design decision, so it probably doesn’t matter which one goes on which side.