The pages have just enough give and just enough flex to offer pretty good impact protection, and the spine gives rigidity and structure to the package. Put the whole thing in your messenger bag spine first and don’t forget to stop and appreciate the irony.

You see, his grandfather, my great-grandfather, was an inventor. Or I should say, he was a tinker. He didn’t make his living at dreaming up new gadgetry, but from time to time he’d improve upon the things he had around him. According to the family lore (the clock itself being pretty solid evidence of this), Great Grandpa Hyde invented the bypass lever mechanism for the modern mechanical alarm clock. Previously, when the alarm woke you in the morning, you had to first shut it off, then re-wind the whole clock. His bypass lever allowed one to simply shut off the alarm and let the clock keep running. A simple innovation, but fairly profound to how the world came to use alarm clocks. He submitted his idea to one of the major clock companies, who rejected him saying that they didn’t see much merit in his innovation. The following year, their newest model alarm clock featured a handy new bypass lever. GG Hyde was neither credited nor compensated. A similar thing happened to him again with Chrysler and an idea he submitted for what became the modern automatic transmission. I’ve seen his dated sketches for what we know today as a torque converter. Chances are you’ve got one in your car.

As discouraging as those stories are in how they turned out, seeing that kind of inventing happening three generations ago in my family was simply thrilling. I think of that man’s daughter — my dad’s aunt Mary Jane — who flew fighters during WWII as part of the W.A.S.P. program and later helped design the landing radar on the Apollo lunar lander. I geek out to no end thinking that some of our family tech is sitting on the moon! Her brother worked on both the XB-70 and B1-A supersonic strategic bomber programs, and later for Lockheed’s Skunkworks devision on projects he probably still can’t talk about.

Then there’s dad. If I had to pick just one thing I appreciate most about my upbringing, it’d be the industriousness that he modeled for me. Dad was never really one to wait for the market to provide him with whatever he wanted or needed. He also didn’t see the need to pay the market’s prices for things he could just assume do or build himself. What’s more, he’s never been one to shy away from something he wanted to do simply because it was difficult. Take for example his 1969 MGb GT. Dad bought the car new in 1969 and has had it ever since. Keeping an old british car running is no small feat. It’s no garage queen either. He drove that little green car to work every day until he retired. He restored the interior when I was a teenager and now it’s essentially due for another restoration. This time it’ll include the motor and the bodywork. Thanks to dad, I know how to use tools. I know how not to break the heads off of bolts. I know how to read factory service manuals. This kind of hands-on learning was invaluable, and not always voluntary.

I was the default tool fetcher whenever dad was working on something, especially cars. What I didn’t appreciate for many years was the invaluable mentorship I was receiving. I would have rather been inside watching TV on a Sunday afternoon, but instead I was handing him wrenches and finding his hacksaw in the jumble of the tool room. It wasn’t my favorite thing, mostly because I didn’t understand what he was doing and because I’m lousy at finding things. But in my teen years, a switch flipped in my head. I realized that knowing how to take things apart wasn’t simply good diversion, but would open up whole worlds for me. I realized that knowing how to work on a car was the best gateway to owning one. When that day came, my new wheels needed the air conditioning system rebuilt. A family friend asked where we were going to take the car to in order to get it fixed. Dad just chuckled. “Oh no, no. It’s not going anywhere. He’s going to learn air conditioning.” And learn air conditioning I did. I pulled and replaced every major component in that system. We borrowed a vacuum pump and gauges, charged the system, and I had cool air in my cool car. But more than that, I now understood how a/c systems worked even knew how to convert and old R-12 freon system to R-134a. Useful stuff that’s saved me hundreds of dollars over the years. But more importantly, it’s removed the intimidation factor from a lot of big jobs like that. It took me a solid week to do it. Probably about 30 hours of work.

Aside from learning to fix things, dad often modeled ingenious invention — no surprise, growing up in his grandfather’s house. If something he wanted or needed wasn’t readily available or cost more than he thought it ought to, he’d just make his own. He wanted a “chuck wagon” trailer he could haul around behind our van as a mobile kitchen for camping trips and other utility. So he scrounged up an old truck axle, some angle iron and a hitch receiver and welded one up. He wanted a little portable camping griddle that would run off a bottle of propane. So he made one using scrounged parts repurposed so well you’d think this was their original purpose. But what separates his builds from redneck, jury-rigged make-do items is that these things aren’t just slopped together. They’re safe. They’re solid. They’ll work perfectly fine 30 years from now. He’s just finished building a barn at the house. It’ll be a place to park his truck, but more than that, it’ll be “the workshop I always wanted” according to him. No telling what he’ll build with that kind of facility available to him.

Which brings me to my current undertaking, Project Streetliner. In a tradition that goes back generations in my family, I’m building the thing I want but can’t find and can’t afford in the marketplace. I want to do very much what’s been described in the latest Porsche Panamera commercial.

Over 60 years ago Dr. Ferry Porsche couldn’t find the car of his dreams. So he built one.

Now my dream car and Dr. Porsche’s are not that similar — at least not for this vehicle — but the sentiment is the same. I want an interesting, efficient, A-to-B vehicle unlike anything else on the road, and I’m going to have to make it myself. There’s lots of precedent for this — for going one’s own way to have what you want. Mr. Ferrari wanted to race. Mr. Lamborghini thought Mr. Ferarri’s road cars were awful and that he could do much better. Orville and Wilber Wright wanted to fly. Burt Munro wanted to go really, really fast on his Indian motorcycle. Steve Jobs and The Woz wanted to make a computer you could use at home.

What I find kind of sad is that we’re currently socialized to find this kind of thinking very “out there” and even dangerous. It doesn’t even occur to most people that they could build their own car, or their own airplane, or their own computer. Yet these things are not as out of reach as many people probably believe. Did you know that there’s an immense grassroots organization, the EAA, devoted entirely to homebuilt aircraft? Across the country, right now, there are literally thousands of people with actual aircraft in their garages in various stages of completion. There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of operational homebuilt aircraft flying around the world every day. That rules! I want to tap into that ethos. I want to connect with that spirit of invention that turned two bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio into the fathers of aviation — that same tinkering ingenuity by which some of the most profound innovations of the last millennium were made. And in so doing, in many ways, I’m returning to my roots. I want to be a person of doing, not simply a consumer.

There were moments when I thought I was going to have to bite the bullet and pay somebody to do the job and other moments where, with the brake components in about six pieces in my lap, I thought I was thoroughly screwed. There’s an oddly satisfying perseverance needed to work on something mechanical. You want to give up. You’re tired of crawling around under a dirty machine. Something just won’t come apart or refuses to go back together. This job was three hours of that. But as much of a pain as this one brake set was, finishing that corner of the car was like standing on top of a mountain. Now I understand the rear brakes on the MINI and like so many other fix jobs on cars, that’s half the point. I’ll never have to pay for a brake job, and that alone is very, very satisfying. Tonight I do the other wheel.

I’ve been stuck in the house with a cold since Wednesday night and hadn’t been on my Vespa since last Saturday. I was itching for some road time. Weather was in the 50s. That’s just cool enough to separate the casual riders from the enthusiasts. Specifically I wanted to investigate Lilydale Road —  a scenic looking side road I’d seen on last Saturday’s ride up Sibley Memorial Highway.

As I waited for the turning arrow at the junction of Highway 13 and SMH, I saw something remarkable across the intersection. I saw something that had seemingly jumped out of the drawing board in my head and on to the road. It was a recumbent trike retrofit with a small gasoline engine. I couldn’t help but wave at the guy and give him a hearty “you rock” gesture with my two outer fingers extended. He laughed and returned my wave. My arrow turned green and I pulled off to the side of the road after making my turn. He pulled over too once the light let him through the intersection and we chatted about our respective rides. His was just DIY fantastic — a brilliant assembly of mostly off-the-shelf parts and a few simple pieces of custom aluminum. He told me about a number of different tinker projects he had going on and the genesis of this one in particular. Apparently, depending on what final drive sprocket he uses, he can get this machine up to 60 mph with the 140cc Honda engine he’s using. Today he had his “40 mph” sprocket installed and was out for a quick cruise after a tire repair curious how well it would climb hills.

He was as much a character as his machine. “I’ll show you.” he said as we pulled away from the shoulder. I’d place this gentleman in at least his 60s. He had mischievous retiree written all over him. We cruised a couple miles and I had so much fun watching his machine do its thing. The rear wheels of the trike had a healthy amount of camber on them, which seemed to really add to stability in the corners. The engine and drive wheel trailed behind eagerly — creating a look that was instantly recognizable as DIY — but really well executed DIY. Most noticeably, the little trike just seemed to get on effortlessly. At no point did it seem like he was hanging on for dear life or having to wrangle it into doing something it didn’t want to do.

We stopped and chatted again and he told me some harrowing tales about a broken throttle cable. The disk brakes weren’t enough to overcome the power of the motor, and he finally had to find his way up onto the sidewalk and ditch it into a hedge. He told this story all too nonchalantly. Great guy, great machine. It’s not exactly what I have in mind to build, but it has my mind racing with possibilities.

The second great part of the ride was Lilydale Road. I soon recognized it as part of the Rattle My Bones history ride route from a year ago. It’s an isolated but smooth little two lane that much to my surprise opened up into a fantastically scenic little river lane. A tunnel of trees gave way to a colorful panorama of the opposite bank of the merged Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. It wound its way along the river and inserted me into downtown St. Paul as though through a secret entrance, right next to the St. Paul Yacht Club. That fabulous route, plus my new tires, equalled total riding bliss. With the St. Paul riverfront sprawled before me, I was pleasantly satisfied with my outing. It was chilly enough and I’m still runny nosed enough that it was time to head home. I retraced my tracks and this little stretch of road is my new favorite route. I’m going to make a point of riding it as much as I can before the end of this riding season. Anybody want to come along?

The Honda was very interesting and obviously very advanced, but like all Hondas, was seriously lacking in soul. The Jetta TDi was shockingly powerful and pretty fun to drive. I can’t go so far as to call it sporty, but it definitely has more character than your average small sedan. Both were interesting, yet neither were compelling enough to open my wallet. The other b-day activity I wanted to undertake was to make something. Anything. I miss making things with my own two hands. The online DIY community, the Maker movement, and especially Mythbusters has really inspired me to make making much more a part of my daily life. But what to build first? I’ve always loved the trebuchet, an ancient, elegant, and imposing siege weapon. I’ve seen full-scale replicas that throw pianos and have always wanted one of my own. A few weeks ago, I noticed this kit from ThinkGeek.com. I almost bought one, but then thought “I could just build one.” I tucked that into the back of my mind and then on Monday I noticed that one of our neighbors was throwing out a broken crib. The particle board slats were perfect and plentiful, plus the longer pieces would make a perfect throwing arm. So armed only with scrap and a few hand tools, I constructed my very own miniature flinger of doom! The only bits I had to buy were odd nuts and bolts and a small door latch I used for the release mechanism. It’s just perfect for hucking tennis balls or golf balls. It’s my own slice of medieval history and in ancient scale goodness, it’s even powered by tiny boulders. I’m still dialing in the sling, as the release point is still very late, but it’s lots and lots of fun.

Leaving your blinkers on accidentally sends the wrong signal to vehicles and can easily get your arse run over. There’s the dash lights, but the attentions of riding keep my eyes off the gauges for the most part. I’ve taken to over-canceling the switches and more than once I’ve canceled my turn before actually executing it. I had the same problem in my 1979 Vespa P200E. My fix then, as it is now, was to wire a simple buzzer into the turn indicator electrics. For about $5 in parts, I’ve added a nice level of riding safety.

I’d wired a set of these before, but thanks to this post on ModernVespa, I found slightly better way to wire them. The circuit is actually pretty simple. On the GT, I was able to wire the whole thing through just the body openings for the indicator lenses and the opening behind the horn cover — that is to say, I didn’t need to remove the glove box or the rear cover to the leg shield.

Supplies

• 1 – Piezo Buzzer. Radio Shack part # 273-080
• 2 – Diodes. Radio Shack part # 276-1101
• 4ft – Red 18 gauge wire
• 2ft – Black 18 gauge wire
• 1 – In-line fuse holder with 20A fuse
• 1 – cable tie

Tools

• Phillips screwdriver, medium and large
• Wire clippers (a wire stripper is also a good idea, much easier)
• Soldering iron/micro-torch and solder
• Hot glue gun

Preparation

1. Remove the four philips-head screws in the floor board to reveal the battery.
2. Disconnect the negative (black) battery terminal and lay it aside so that it can’t accidentally touch the terminal again.
3. Remove the single philips-head screw from the base of each turn indicator lens  and pull the lens forward and out of the scooter body.
4. Disconnect the wire at the connecter under the rubber boot.
5. Remove the indicator lens assemblies from the body completely and set them aside.
6. Remove the single philips-head screw from the top corner of the left side knee pad and remove.

Wiring and mounting
What we’re creating here is essentially two one-way circuits that share a common ground wire. The diodes let us wire both lenses to a single buzzer. Without the diodes, current would backtrack to the other indicator light and you’d get both lights at once, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. The alternative would be to wire a buzzer into each light, but that’s a waste since about $0.65 worth of electrical parts lets us have a much simpler circuit.

I mounted and wired the components as I went. Starting with the fuse, I drilled a 1/2″ hole in the knee pad to accept the fuse holder. You need not do it this way. This was simply the fuse holder I had left over from my old Vespa. I mounted it externally, that way if I do blow a fuse I don’t have to take anything apart to swap it. This left side pad panel is ideal for these kinds of mods since there’s nothing underneath it. The right side pad panel houses the coolant reservoir, so best not to crowd anything in there if you don’t have to. After attaching the fuse holder, I hot-glued the buzzer to the backside of the panel. Even though it’s on the inside of the panel, it’s plenty loud to be heard over engine and road noise and even when wearing a full-face helmet.

When wiring the diodes, keep in mind that they are directional and that direction is indicated by the stripe on the barrel of the diode. In the case of this circuit, you can actually face the two diodes in the same direction and solder their downstream leads together. Make sure the stripe is pointed toward the buzzer and you’re golden. Then run two separate red leads, one from each of the separate upstream leads of the diodes. These will connect to the positive (colored) wires on the OEM indicator light wiring. You’ll also need to extend a black ground wire. This will connect into the black ground wire in the OEM wiring, but it need only connect on one side. It’s also a really good idea to use a multi-meter to check for continuity as you go. Or at the very least, be sure to check your assembled wiring before you install it into the scooter. Also remember that since you’ve got diodes, the polarity of your testing wires will actually matter.

Splicing into the OEM wiring is not too tricky. Peel back the black tape the covers the wires until you’ve got a good 3″ of wire away from the connector. You’ll be splicing both wires on one side, and only the “hot” or colored wire on the other. Be sure to leave yourself enough room so that the rubber boot can slide back off of the connector enough to connect and disconnect the lens without putting stress on your splices. Insulate everything thoroughly with shrink wrapping or electrical tape before reassembling and reinstalling the lenses. Make sure to swing the handlebars back and forth and be sure everything has enough slack. Also be sure to secure the long wire over to the right side indicator somewhere along the way with a cable tie.

Troubleshooting
All that’s left is to test. Reconnect your battery. Turn the ignition to on. Listen for fuses blowing and keep your nose open for anything that smells like hot wiring. If you see smoke, or smell something out of sorts, turn the key to off and disconnect your battery before you go looking for the hot wire.

If you’ve hooked everything up correctly, you should get a surprisingly loud beep with each pulse of the turn indicator. If your indicator lights don’t come on, then you’ve either got a short in your splicing, or you’ve blown a fuse. Check both. If both lights come on together, then your diodes are either shorted upstream of each other or aren’t installed in the correct direction. Stick to the wiring diagram and you should be good.

Installing the Stebel Nautilus seems like a complex operation at first. It’s less complex the second time. But now that I’ve done three of these, I think I’ve got it figured out. If you try to look at all of it at once, it seems really daunting. If you break up the install into its basic tasks, it’s actually really easy, especially in the Blur.

There are two basic parts to getting the horn in:

1. Mounting the horn and the relay
2. Wiring the horn and the relay

Supplies

1. 6-8 ft of 14-guage red wire. 3 ft of 14-guage black wire
2. One in-line fuse holder, also 14 guage, and some 20-amp fuses (I recommend the “blade” type automotive fuses)
3. Four slide-type 14-guage crimp connectors (the kind that will fit the blade terminals on the horn and the relay)
4. Two ring-type 14-guage crimp connectors (the kind that you can pass a bolt through)
5. One 14-gauge junction connector (basically a tube for connecting two wires together)
6. One 1/4″ diameter bolt, 1″ long, and a nut.

Tools

1. Regular metric socket wrench set with 8mm-12mm sockets and extensions
2. Medium size phillips (+) screwdriver
3. Crimping tool (you can buy the crimping tool as part of a kit that will have all the connectors you need also)
4. Drill with 1/4″ and 5/16″ drill bits
5. Multi-meter (voltmeter you can use to test continuity)

Mounting
Believe it or not, mounting one of these horns in a scooter is actually harder than doing the wiring work. It’s five times the size of the OEM horn, so cramming it into the space can be a bit sketchy depending on the scooter. In the Buddy, for example, it’s a total cram job. You’ve got to basically wedge it in there between the frame pieces and strap it down – and that’s after you’ve relocated some of the OEM electronic components. On the Blur, however, all we need to do is drill a hole in the OEM mount and we’re good to go. So let’s get started.

1. Disconnect the Battery.
Open your under-seat storage compartment. The battery is under a tabbed battery compartment cover just aft of the pet carrier bucket. Remove the compartment cover, then remove the two screws on either side of the battery cover itself. Now unscrew the negative (-) battery terminal and push the wire away from the post so that it can’t flop back and touch the terminal again.

2. Remove the horn cover
At the nose of the Blur, there is a black, triangular panel above the headlights and below the headset. It’s got the Genuine G logo in the center of it. That’s the horn cover. It’s attached from behind via two screws in the upper corners and then by a series of clip tabs around its perimeter. Remove the two screws, then gently pry up on those loose corners and work your way down to the big tab at the bottom point of the triangle. It’s pretty sturdy, so don’t worry too much about breaking it. You shouldn’t need anything but your fingers to get it loose.

3. Remove the OEM horn and bracket
With the horn cover removed, you should be able to see the black, circular, OEM horn. It’ll have two wires coming out of it, one green with a yellow stripe, the other black. Disconnect these and lay the wires aside. Be careful to pull on the connecters and not the wires – you don’t want to break these as you’ll need them later. Using a 12mm socket, remove the horn bracket (the horn will come with it). Save the bolt, as we’ll reuse this whole bracket assembly later on. Now grab an 8mm socket and remove the OEM horn from the bracket.

4. Mount the Nautilus and its relay on the OEM bracket.
We’re going to reuse the OEM bracket and OEM mounting point on the Blur’s frame to mount the new horn. We’re also going to use the bracket to mount the relay. Using a 5/16″ drill bit, drill a hole in the center of the OEM bracket (it’s best to start small and work your way up to 5/16″). We’re going to use the bolt/nut that came with the Nautilus to mount it to the bracket in this new hole, then use the original bolt and bracket hole to bolt the bracket back onto the bike. We’ll then use the 1/4″ hole on the end of the OEM bracket (where the old horn used to be mounted) as the mounting point for the relay. Use just a 1/4″ nut/bolt to secure the relay, but you’ll need to drill out the mounting hole on the tab to 1/4″ first. Get everything finger-tight for now. Test mount the new horn and relay and adjust your angles so that you’re not hitting anything. You can do all of this through the horn cover opening, there’s no need to remove the whole nose panel. Do a test fit, and then go ahead and pull the horn back out. We’ll get it all wired up, then mount it for good.

Wiring
This is actually easier than it seems at first. What you’re essentially doing is creating a new circuit off the (+) side of the battery, running it through the new horn via the relay, and then back to ground. You then use the OEM wires from the original horn to activate the relay. So if you think of this as two separate circuits, it helps keep things more simple. Also, if you have a multi-meter, it’s a very good idea to check the continuity of your wires as you make them, that way if something doesn’t work later in the process, you’ll know you at least have good wires.
1. Tying in to the battery for power
Using a ring connector and your in-line fuse holder, create a patch wire to attach to the (+) battery terminal. Then splice the other end of that fuse holder to a 6′ long piece of red 14-guage wire. You’re going to then feed that wire through the frame. Install a fuse and check for continuity. Then remove the fuse for now – we don’t want anything touching the frame and blowing your main fuse.

2. Feeding the wire through the frame
Since the battery negative (-) is grounded to the frame, we only need to run a positive (+) wire forward to the horn. The easiest way to do this is to remove the “seat bucket” – the pet carrier and actual seat. It’s held in using simply four 10mm bolts – two in the floor of the pet carrier and two in the rear by the battery. When lifting out the assembly, be sure to pause and disconnect the light on the right side. Now you should be able to feed the wire out of the battery box, down the right side of the bike frame and attach it with cable ties as you go. The tricky part will be getting the wire up through the front fork area and into the compartment where the horn is. A wire hanger will work well for this, as you can push it through, tie/tape/bend the electrical wire to it, and then pull it back through. Just be careful that you don’t snag other important wires along the way. Also be sure to turn the handle bars back and forth to make sure nothing is binding. It’s easy and appropriate to follow and even attach to the wiring bundle that already exists in this area. Secure everything, leaving some slack on both ends, and leaving at least 12-18″ of extra wire out the front of the bike.

3. Understanding the wiring
If you’ve never done anything like this before, the whole concept of the relay and the extra wiring probably seems really complex and daunting. Truth is, it’s a lot simpler than you think, it just isn’t explained very well anywhere that I’ve looked for guidance. Here’s how it works. We’re using a relay to capture the on/off signal from the OEM horn switch on your handlebars and use that to open/close a new circuit that we’ll create from the battery (the long red wire you just ran). You wouldn’t want to just plug the old wires into the new horn because the Nautilus draws a lot more power than the OEM horn and you’ll eventually burn out the switch. Instead we’re going to use the OEM horn switch to activate a new switch – the relay.

It’s easiest if you think of it as two separate circuits that intersect at the relay. You’ve got the new circuit you’ve created using new wire from the battery. That circuit runs from the battery, through the relay, into the new horn, and then back from the horn to the frame of the scooter (ground). The second circuit is the OEM horn circuit. The green/yellow (+) horn wire from the switch on the handle bar, and the black ground (-) wire. These plug into the relay and open/close the new circuit – sending electricity to the Nautilus and making a lot of noise!

4. Wiring the actual relay
There are a set of numbers stamped into the casing below each connector on the relay. You only need to remember one number: 85. The 85 connector blade is the lynch pin for this whole wiring job. At this point, you should have the relay mounted onto the OEM horn mounting bracket – turn it so that the connectors will face up once the bracket is installed for good. Remove the whole assembly from the scooter for now, but stay close to the bike as we’ll need to do one more dry fitting before we tighten everything down.

Take the green/yellow OEM horn wire and plug it into blade 85 on the relay. Now take the black OEM horn wire and plug it in opposite blade 85. You’re half way there.

Now you’re going to want to make a new red wire, about 12″ long, with a connector on each end, to run from the positive (+) blade terminal on the bottom of the new horn to the relay. Leave yourself some slack, but you don’t want a bunch of extra wire to manage either. Connect that wire from the positive (+) terminal on the horn to one of the open blades on the relay (at right angle to 85) – it doesn’t matter which one. So now you should have three of the four blade terminals on the relay connected to something – green/yellow on 85, black opposite, red at 90º on one side or the other.

Now it’s time to set the whole assembly in the scooter for just a second. You should have 12-18″ of red wire hanging out the front of the scooter (running from the back of the scooter). That wire is going to plug into the last open blade terminal on the relay. Make sure you’ve got enough slack to run that red wire to the relay with the horn in its final position, plus enough to lay the horn out of the compartment without disconnecting it. Cut the long red wire to length and crimp on a connector. Connect to the relay – you should only have one open slot left across from the red wire you just made. You should have all four terminals connected to something now. Two red wires opposite each other, and the OEM wires opposite each other.

Time to make one more wire. Create a black ground wire to run from the negative (-) terminal on the bottom of the horn to the frame of the scooter. Crimp a slide connector on one end (to connect to the blade terminal on the horn), and a ring terminal on the other end. The idea is to loosen some screw or bolt that fastens into the frame, then pass that screw or bolt through the ring terminal and bolt it back on to the frame. That’s your negative (-) return to ground, which connects you to the negative (-) battery terminal and completes our new horn circuit. On my bike, I grounded to the center mounting bolt for the nose body panel just above the horn compartment opening. I sandwiched the ring connecter between the bolt head and the washer so that it was metal to metal all the way to the frame beneath. Check your wire for continuity and connect the negative (-) terminal of the horn to frame ground. You now have a complete set of circuits.

5. The moment of truth
You’re going to need to do two things before you can test and see if your horn works.

A. Reconnect the negative (-) battery terminal in the battery compartment.
B. Install a 20 amp fuse in the in-line fuse holder you added to the positive (+) battery terminal

Now put your key in the ignition, switch it to “on”, and press the horn button. Hopefully you’ll hear the loud glory that is the Stebel Nautilus. If not, double check all your connections, double check continuity on your wires, make sure you’re grounded to the frame, and double check that you haven’t blown any fuses, and double-check the orientation of your relay wires relative to 85. I’ll add a trouble-shooting section at the end [of the final article, call me if you run into trouble].

6. Buttoning up
Presuming everything works and you’ve done a little victory dance to the music of your ringing ears, now it’s time to mount everything permanently and put the scooter back together. By now you’ve had the horn in and out a couple of times and can see the basic angle between the bracket and the horn to get the horn to hang properly without hitting any of the plastic. Go ahead and tighten up the nuts on the horn and the relay, then using the OEM bolt, re-mount the bracket and tighten down. Wiggle all your wires to make sure nothing is binding. Test the horn one more time to make sure it works, then reinstall the horn cover. Now put the seat bucket back in (don’t forget about the light) and re-install all the battery covers. Use some duct tape to tape a spare fuse inside the battery compartment. Test everything one last time, and fire up the bike for good measure.

Congratulations, you’re officially loud.