I think it was last time I rounded Cowley junction (still, incidentally, only signosted 'marina' - the Slough Arm may as well not exist) I spotted my horn wasn't working. I'd get nowhere on Indian roads, but fine on a winter's day in the Uk canal system. Anyway, I finally had a look, and the horn mechanism has well and truly had it. A while ago the spiral acoustic horn assembly had been knocked off the unit, so the subsequent ingress of damp had caused severe corrosion, not even I'm going to try to fix this one. Thankfully the horn was originally bought as half of a pair anyway, so I have a handy replacement.
I'm struggling to find this signifcantly exciting myself, but the horn mechanism proves to be a glorified buzzer, driving a metal diaphragm; 'klaxon' style horns actually used an electric motor to drive a ridged cam against the diapgragm. Yawn...
Anyway, while pottering about on the front bulkhead I'm also sorting out the headlight, which has remained the 'temporary' installation put together in Grove a couple of years ago. I'm mounting a rectangular headlight on the front bulkhead side, along with the horn (and for completion the telly ariel socket), allowing clearance for the front doors be be fully open. This also significantly tidies the wiring - previously the headlight was on the left side of the boat roof, now it's lower on the right. It's still adjustable to favour the tunnel roof and to avoid dazzling oncoming boats, naturally.
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