How to Install Horntones MP3 Player Ford F-150 Motorz #6) #GJWhighonlife #GJWtechnology #GJWtram

I'm Chris Duke, and this is TruckBlogTV. Today on TruckBlogTV, we're going to install an FX-550 horn tone system on our project truck. And a really cool thing about this system is that you can play all of your MP3 files, which can be music, sound effects, or whatever you want on the player. The other advantage is you don't have to install a whole bunch of air compressors and wiring and horns for all these other things that you want, like the train horns, the oogle horn, Dixie horn, and stuff like that. This kit includes a 110 decibel speaker right here, the player with a bunch of buttons that you can program, and the USB port, as well as a 150-watt amplifier. Let's check out the player now. The settings menu allows you to change the backlight, erase all your files, and change a few other settings, while the file explorer gives you a pretty good list of all of your MP3s that are on the player. The system comes pre-programmed with three themes, horns, voices, and animals. Let's check out the horns. Now horns are great, but this is a full-blown MP3 player, so let's check out what it can really do and play some of the voices. Hey baby, hang up and drive. Thank you, thank you very much. That is classic. That'll be $5, please. I'll be back. I'll be backing up. And finally, what wouldn't be more fun than driving through the city playing some animal sounds and freaking people out? Now Homertones recommends a professional installation, but we're going to show you how to do it yourself with some simple and inexpensive tools. The first thing we need to do is figure out where to mount this huge and heavy speaker. In the engine compartment, right behind our K&N air filter, we found a spot right here. The problem is there's nothing to hang it to, so we've got to build our own custom bracket, and we'll show you how we did that next. The Hormtones speaker comes with its own mounting bracket and bolts, but in order to mount this to our truck, we needed to build our own bracket. So to do that, we went to our local hardware store and bought a piece of sheet metal for $0.50, and a set of tin snips, which allowed us to notch our bracket right here to make room for our hood's bump stopper. Now, we're going to mount the bracket. After putting the speaker in place and checking for fitment, I grabbed some nuts and bolts and mounted it to the truck. One of the most important things I can stress is to be patient when working with the wiring. Now, we've already pre-installed all of our wiring, so now we can show you how everything hooks up. The Hormtones speaker already came with a couple of speaker wires, so all I had to do is snake some new wires from inside the cab out into the engine compartment, and then connect them using these wire connectors and a crimping tool, and then tidy things up a little bit. Now that we've installed the speaker underneath the hood of the truck, it's time to turn our attention to the interior and mount the Hormtones player. Now, there's a couple of different mounting options that we came up with. One is right here by the steering column. Problem there is you might hit it with your knee and accidentally play a tone. You don't want that. The other option is down here near the floor. It's just kind of hard to get to when you're driving. One of the other options we considered was up here in the overhead console. It's just a little bit harder to get to the wiring up there. So where we ended up mounting it, it's going to be right here in the center console, so it's still easy to get to and out of the way. Now, one trick now is we need to find switched power for this thing, so it only operates when the ignition is turned on. One of the best places to look for switched power inside your truck is behind the stock radio, because the radio only turns on when you turn your key on. And to get there, we need to remove the radio surround. And it's pretty easy. You don't need any special tools. Just open up your cup holder a little bit and put your fingers behind here. Pull up a little bit. After a little bit of prying, it comes off pretty easy, and you have full access to everything that's inside. First, I reach behind the radio and detach the wiring harness that's attached to the back. Then, to try to figure out which one of these wires was the switched power, I put the ignition in accessory mode and grounded the horn tone's player and took the red wire and tested each one of these connections until the light went on. After a few attempts, I finally found the right one, a green wire with a yellow stripe on it. To connect the horn tone's player to the switched power source, I used a tap-in squeeze connector, which is really handy for tight situations like this. After deciding to mount the amplifier underneath the driver's seat, I connected both black ground wires for the amplifier and the player. Next, I connected the switched power source that I found earlier behind the radio to the horn tone's player. And finally, the blue remote wire from the player, which tells the amplifier when to turn on and off. Now, unlike the horn tone's player that requires switched battery power, the horn tone's amplifier requires constant battery power. So we're going to take this wire here and we're going to connect it to the amplifier. We're going to run it along the door sill, up through the firewall, and connect it to the truck's battery. The wires I had to snake through the driver's side door sill include the switched power for the player, the constant power for the amplifier, and the ground wire, which terminates right here. While the amplifier's constant power continued through the firewall, the player's switched power went over the steering column and over to the center of the dash. Now, before I got any further along, I decided to give it a quick test to make sure everything was working properly, so I hooked up the audio cables, turned on the ignition, and gave it a quick test. Then, I secured the amplifier to the floor of the truck. I needed a longer audio cable than the one that was supplied, so I used my own extension cable and these couplers to extend it by about two feet. And finally, I mounted the player inside my center console using a couple of screws, a drill, and the supplied bracket. The Horn Tones FX-550 is definitely a project that you can tackle yourself in your own garage, but if you're a little weary about the electrical side of things, take it to your local car stereo shop and let them handle the installation for you. For more information on Horn Tones, go to www.horntones.com and be sure to check out more of our videos at www.truckblog.tv and also subscribe to our free podcast on iTunes. Red dot right there, see it?