Hello all, I recently got a Shocker 240 kit for Xmas from the wife. I was looking for some install pointers on my '08 F250. This is my first train horn kit so I’m new to this. I’ve looked around and haven’t seen much advice that would be specific for my needs so please don’t beat me up and tell me to search.
Just wondering whether I should mount the horns up front or in the back. Is it better to keep them all together or separate them and point them at different angles. And for the intake hose, what is a good location for that on a pickup truck?
Do I need to upgrade anything in this kit or will it be okay the way it is?
I have a feeling I will be upgrading to the 5gal tank in the future, and maybe bigger horns. But for now this will have to do.
Are we excited or what :). No worries about the questions. Plenty of good help to be found here.
Now… in answer to your questions:
Mounting: Either front or back is fine. Best to find a spot where you can keep them together because you’ll want the 5/16" air lines that go between the banjo and the horns to be the same length so that they all go at the same time. Get them pointing onto the tarmac and you’ll get good sound bouncing out no matter where you’ve got 'em.
Keep the compressor intake high and dry. The HB kits all come with a comprehensive install guide. Follow that and you shouldn’t run into any trouble.
Upgrades or other bits: No, you won’t need anything. These kits are great because everything from the hoses to the fittings to the fuses to the wires is all in there. Get it running first, think about upgrades to compressor or tank later.
Enjoy the Shockers. You’ll be wearing a grin from ear to ear when you first hit that button (… and each time after that ;))
Excited…yeah a little. Been telling the wife for about 2.5 years that I’ve wanted them but she’s been in school and barely working so I had to let her graduate and start making some good $ so she could buy it. So my anxiety has finally been calmed down a bit, now just gotta find the time to install the kit. Thx for the advice, I’ll get pics once its done.
Going to wire the kit into the factory horn power wire and use one of my upfitter switches as a cutoff in case I don’t want to horns to blow.
Congrats on the kit! As DBO stated, you won’t be disappointed!
To answer some of your questions, the place of mounting on the vehicle itself won’t make a huge difference as far as loudness is concerned. We suggest to never mount them facing forward as road debris may damage the internals of the horns.
Everything in this kit is upgraded from a the 1/4" classic hose and valve to the 1/2". The 5 gallon tank would be the next step for future upgrades.
Funny you should say that because I am actually pretty disappointed. The instructions aren’t very comprehensive, and should actually include color photos outlining some of the steps. A black and white photocopy is rather unacceptable and doesn’t help much for some people. I won’t be wearing a grin anytime soon because of hornblasters return policy where they are making me purchase a replacement air valve so they can later refund me the money or make me send in my old valve first until they can inspect it. Definitely not my idea of the service I expected to receive after buying a $600 product. Had I bought a Nathan kit I would have been treated better probably. My idea of customer service is: “oh ok we are very sorry about the defective part, we got your email on Monday morning so a new part will be in the outgoing Monday mail with a prepaid return label. Please just drop your old valve in the box you get your new one in and slap the label on and send it back to us. You should have your new valve in 2 days.” Instead I got an email talking about how they are afraid of being taken advantage of if they send out a replacement part without me first paying for another one.if I was going to take advantage of your company it sure wouldn’t be for a $30 air valve which other people have had similar issues with.
We do warranty our products to the highest degree. Inspection of the proclaimed faulty part is of typical protocol with any company before issuing a replacement. We have no way of inspecting the part until we receive it.
We would love to think all of our customer’s are as trustworthy to not take advantage of us. The majority of online companies have a no cross shipping policy for this exact reason, by asking for a new valve, us sending the new valve out and only hoping that they are indeed sending the broken valve back to us in return. Unfortunately, there are people out there that would state the valve is broken when really it isn’t, receive a brand new valve and not return the “broken valve”, leaving them with two brand new valves.
Your kit was not purchased through us directly either. Therefore, there isn’t a credit card on file for us to have a back up in case a valve wasn’t received in return.
Correct our company does sell through Ebay, as does many of our vendors sell our product under their company name.
I was very thorough with my investigation of your purchase. It was not ordered through our company directly. The order number you gave was a drop shipment through a vendor of ours.
Yeah I guess certain other companies have spoiled me with great customer service so now I have higher expectations. Reality check. Thx for the heads up, I know where to shop from now on. Maybe if I had asked for and got a first class kit I would have been treated like a first class customer.