Can anyone tell me what the original coating was for the horns? Most of the ones I have seen are painted...with overspray.

Thanks to a pointer in another thread, I have managed to get the ones from our 914-6 working again. Despite several searches, I've yet to find a resource that indicates the proper coating after stripping the cover and the diaphragm.

• 914-635-103-11: Horn - HELLA - 335 HZ
• 914-635-104-11: Horn - HELLA - 400 HZ

Ours prior to stripping didn't offer much evidence to guide me.

The outer cover was galvanized

not galvanised.

originally the horn on the 914 was black painted.
mine is still original unmolested - the paint on the rear surface is quite intact.
the front surface pointed towards the bumper grille is flakey but still 1/2 there.
i do not believe what is underneath is galvanised metal. its possible but if it is its very thin galvanising. certainly not hot dipped. i'm inclined to believe its a high copper content tin or something like that as a metal.

newer replacement horns manufactured decades later - different story.
not made quite the same as the original 60s / 70s era horns.

OP's photo above shows the black paint clearly.
underneath where its been painted white over the top and is flaking off.

my old squareback i had back in the 80s was the same.
black painted. that was an original factory horn on that car.

i went and had a close look at the horn on mine to compare to OP's posted photo.


and now i am laughing.
another one of those great 914 mysteries.
'cause the horn changed along the way with model years?


so i have a 74.
and the horn is identical to this.
(except the black paint is flaking on the front surface of mine).
and its original to the car.
and i have had the car a long long long time.
(and its the same horn that was on my 73 VW squareback).

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but - in the past i have always found the workshop manual an interesting reference.
here is the photo in there.


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going by the usual logic in the workshop manual a great many of the photos illustrate early cars and early parts - they only update a photo when there was a major change.
so i am guessing (reasonably i think) thats a photo in the w m of an early car horn.
probably a 70?

'cause then there is a photo of the update horn location in 75 due to collision bumpers.
and
different again.
actually looks like it might have been silverish? galvanised? or silver plated?

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you got to laugh. you never want to ask these harmless questions about what a particular part was ...... ha

but given dennis V is doing a 6 its going to be an early horn.
looks like the horn in his posted photo almost matches the factory workshop horn photo.
though his has a nut on the front the f w m photo does not seem to show (but they did airbrush treat a lot of the original photography in the factory manual illustrations).
but you can see it does not have the perforated hole grille in middle like the 74.
factory manual photo shows the rear body is definitely all black and probably black gloss.
but definitely the central plate is something else. its a black and white photo so not much more info.

but pretty sure they were all VW horns fitted to both the 4 and 6s so its going to be whatever VW were using on all their models in 1970 and 1971.
there is bound to be some VW beetle geek site that lists the horns for every year.
the info will be there on precisely what it would have been originally for the particular type of horn he has for his 6. google is your friend.

......and there is always the chance there were multiple suppliers of a similar product in any one model year!

cheers. still laughing. 914s!!!!! the answer is never straight forward.

Thanks for the replies. I probably should have provided more detail. I just assumed it was obvious to everyone but me.

The original photo is with the grill removed, so that is the diaphragm. Part of what makes this confusing is:

1. I can't say for certain these are the original horns, but they appear correct.
2. One horn is screwed closure and the other riveted
3. The interior of this one (screwed closure) is a mixture of dark, white, and rust as seen in original post, but the exterior grayish.

I don't know why someone would have painted the diaphragm and not the cover. The cover originally looked something like this VW photo.
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I'm not sure if that is a galvanized coating or perhaps some sort of plating? Sounds like the consensus from @StarBear and @aturboman is galvanized.

CRC has a spray Zinc-It Instant Cold Galvanized coating. I wonder if that would get me close. There is an interesting user test video where you can see it sprayed out. Looks about right to me.

ah - ok @DennisV

then it is virtually the same as mine.
the rivetted ones are slightly later than the screw together ones.

here is mine. rivetted. 74 version.
its original.
best i can do, don't feel like unscrewing grilles etc.

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most of the original black coating (paint) has been worn/reacted off but is still visible. its not road grime. i had it out about 3 years ago when i was recommissioning the car so took a close look at it then.

with the outer layer of paint worn off it looks grey colored. which is probably what most people are looking at today 50 years on thinking is galvanising?

back housing is from memory bakerlite plastic black. maybe pot metal but my memory is its bakerlite. could be wrong.

i did do a bit of a look on google. plenty of old horns for sale on samba.
most are dirt/weatherblasted to a rough grey color.
there is the odd one you can find that is for sale as an NOS part still with a box.
these vary. some are all black and some appear to be unpainted and silver.
its possible that there were variations.

def the one on mine back in 74 factory fresh had a black paint or black coating on it.
maybe even powdercoated?

most surprising thing is the metal itself shows no signs of corrosion on it.
a lot of the old ones for sale on samba also show no corrossion despite age.
which makes me think its an usual metal.
i came across some images of old horns for sale on samba that had a greenish oxidised surface tinge to them. thats a sign of high copper content in the metal (tin) itself.
which might explain why they don't corrode and why they would not need a galvanised coating.

i think a cold gal paint would look pretty good.
i don't think there is necessarily any strictly correct finish for them.
as i say, a bit of poking around on the samba seemed to turn up some slight differences.

it seemed you could get a special bosch klaxon horn with a different tone in europe as an option. possibly for autobahn lane clearing use?
these were similar in size and shape to the standard hella horns but had a different front cover grille. they appear to have been all black painted.

here is an NOS later type horn.
all gal and silver and hung underneath the front of the car car in a less protected position.
these kicked in on beetles and other VWs around about 75.
this is the one VW probably sold as the superseding part after 75.
a bit like the fabled interior light with the white switch which became black in the superceding part. (it was almost the same switch but was updated for the golf which used black highlights and switches throughout). the VW horns are a similar saga.
i believe they produce the same "meep" "meep" sound despite looking a bit different.



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trivia. plymouth roadrunner of muscle car era used a fairly faithful copy of the VW horn to get the "meep" "meep" sound for its special horn.

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Thanks for the additional insight. The roadrunner reference is delightful. I will forever think of that when I hear it.

I'm sure the CRC zinc coat will do a fine job of protecting. From an aesthetic perspective it is not what I was expecting or hoping for. It just looks like gray primer.
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looks good.
not too dissimilar to how they end up looking after half a century anyway.


as you note, the sound is what is important. i think 911s didn't have the cheeky/cute VW horn tone.

Perhaps the later cars had the "galvanized" horns. Here's the before and after on mine from my '74. I just used a small wire-wheel with my Dremel tool. Wonder if it looks like this under all the paint?

NOS 914-6 horn for reference.

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thats the first one i have seen out of the box that has not been polished up.
(to remove aged galvanising oxidation? - which can occur even with a stored item).
pretty much settles it seeing one in that condition. unmistakeable original galv mottle.

the black stuff i am seeing on mine must be galvanised coating that has reacted to acidic water. generally speaking its rare to see galvanised coatings go black in australia.
mostly they just dull off.

though i am also of the opinion that some batches of these horns may have originally been painted. my old squareback def had a fully black painted horn and it was not an old or repainted restored car back then in the 80s. i was the second owner. maybe aus cars got a horn produced from a different factory or got a different spec. it was the exact same horn as the one on my 914. but looking close again at the one on my 914 through the bumper grille its kind of undecideable. it could easily be reacted galvanised coating.