If you own a Maxim-X, chances are that one or both of your horn brackets has begun to crack from corrosion and the vibration of day to day riding. It's not the bracket to which the horn assembly is mounted (which doubles as the coil bracket) but the small L-shaped bracket screwed to the back of the horns by two Philips screws. The horns themselves are relatively heavy and are supported from this small metal bracket (shown below outlined in yellow) which experiences constant vibration. The vibration and one critical stress point (shown below outlined in red), combined with 20+ years of corrosion always seems to cause the same bracket failure on every Maxim-X.

In my case, I eventually found each of my horns dangling only from the electrical wires. Some take longer than others to fail and many are encouraged to break a little sooner by owners that feel the need to correct the alignment of their horns by bending the bracket using the horns for leverage. However it happens, you can be confident that if it hasn't happened yet, it eventually will.

If your horn brackets have already broken and the horns have already been lost,.or if they've been damged by some other means, you might simply want/need to buy replacements. In that case you should know that all models of Maxim-X share the same horns and brackets as follows:

Maxim-X Horn & Bracket Identification
Left Horn	High Tone	Assembly# 1AA-83371-20-00	Bracket# 1AA-20
Right Horn	Low Tone	Assembly# 1AA-83371-30-00	Bracket# 1AA-30

Unfortunately, like so many other Maxim-X parts, the horns have been discontinued and aren't being sold by Yamaha any longer. However, the part numbers for the brackets and horns might still be helpful in finding used replacements on eBay or elsewhere on the web.

These brackets tend to fail for a number of reasons - often several reasons in combination. One cause of failure is corrosion. Although the horn brackets are painted, over many years of use, a combination of stress and moisture at the fastening points causes those points to corrode more readily than other parts of the bracket. Of course, orrosion will eventually begin to weaken the brackets locally. Another cause of failure is vibration. The horns are fairly heavy and continually vibrate. They naturally do so while driving but they may also vibrate appreciably when the motorcycle is stationary with the engine running. Given enough cyclic reversals, however small, the brackets will eventually suffer permanent damage (much like folding a copper wire back and forth until it eventually cracks). To complicate matters, I've noticed that the Maxim-X horns often encounter resonant vibrations on their mounts. If your Maxim-X characteristics are such that the horns and brackets achieve resonant vibration often, then they're even more likely to crack and break sooner. One other cause of bracket failure is self-imposed. It seems many Maxim-X owners like to align their skewed horns by force, using the horns for leverage rather than by loosening off the main mount bolts.

Cracked		Split Completely		Bent

However it happens, the end result is usually the same. Cracks form across the first screw hole in the bracket (the one marked in red at the top of the page) where stresses are highest. When examined more closely, the horn brackets often look like one of the pictures above.

Although you just might end up splitting it altogether, repair begins by straightening the bracket. To do so, it's handy to have a vice but if you don't have one, just disconnect the bracket from the horn then bolt the bracket back into place on the motorcycle and use vice grips to straighten it.

The most effective way I could think of to repair the bracket without changing it noticeably, and without the need for special tools, was to laminate the leveraged part of the bracket with some appropriate gauge sheet metal. The laminate construction would hold spilt pieces together and stabilize cracked pieces. Even if the bracket isn't damaged yet, it's a good idea to laminate the susceptible section just to strengthen it to prevent a break from ever happening.

I wasn't especially particular about the laminate sheet metal but I did choose a heavy enough gauge that made bending difficult (but not impossible). Since I happened to have some sheet metal which had been used for autobody repair, that's what I started with but there's no reason you couldn't find something equivalent. One handy piece of appropriately gauged sheet metal that most people can find in their home or buy at the store cheap, is a circular cover for an electrical outlet box, the kind that are used in the ceiling behind lights.... but that's just an idea off the top of my head.

When you've found some appropriate sheet metal, trace the damaged part of the bracket onto the metal and cut it out. Cutting can be done using a jigsaw or even a hacksaw if you're tool-challenged... but the most effective way is to use a metal cutting disc in a grinder.

To connect the two pieces together, I thought of bolts and pop rivets but it was very important to me not to change the appearance of the bracket appreciably. Since I don't have welding tools and don't weld, bonding the two pieces together seemed like the only remaining option... and that's exactly what did using Loctite Gel SuperGlue (handy stuff).

After allowing sufficient time to dry, the edges can be sanded smooth and the holes can be drilled. I also used a small amount of auto body filler and surface putty to make the laminate edges look seemless but that was just a personal preference and isn't really necessary.

If you started with an undamaged bracket or one that has only begun to crack then it would be almost possible to stop at this point. The SuperGlue laminate repair holds surprisingly well but on its own, it isn't enough to prevent the same thing from happening again, especially if you started with a split bracket or one with more than minimal cracking.

To prevent the same forces from causing the same damage again, it's necessary to resist and redirect some of those forces. An easy and effective way to do so was to install a washer between the critical mounting screw and the bracket... but not just any washer. To be effective, the washer had to cover as much of the bracket width as possible. It would also be beneficial to use a washer that could help shorten the leveraged length, taking the damaging forces away from the already weakened area. And finally, a unique curviture to the washer's perimeter could help it redirect forces in favourable directions. Once I knew what I wanted to change, I sketched an efficiently shaped washer on a piece of paper which I used as a template to cut the washer from an appropriate piece of metal. Again, the metal was just something I found around the house which had reasonably heavy gauge and would be difficult to bend. As before, I cut the shape using a metal cutting disk in a grinder while holding the metal with Vice Grips. In the pictures below you'll see the shape I decided on and how it looks overlaying the bracket stress point.

When the washer has be cut, you're almost done. With a few touchups, some sanding to smooth edges and a few coats of paint, you end up with the final product - a reinforced, laminated bracket with a force-distributing washer. The final stage before assembly can be seen in the pictures below.

The only thing remaining is to attach the bracket and washer to the horn. If you used especially heavy gauge material for the laminate piece and for the washer, you might not be able to use the original bracket mounting screws - they might not be long enough anymore. Replacing those screws shouldn't be difficult if it becomes necessary but more than likely the original screws will work. Just be careful about tightening them. If they ended up a little short due to the increased thickness, they might not grip as many threads as you'd hope for in which case tightening them might conceivably strip the threads in the horn housing. None of this was a problem when I did it. The screws were sufficiently long and I was able to tighten them enough without harming the threads in the horns.

Below you'll see the final assembled results. The picture on the right also shows the original stress point (in red) and a the relocated stress point (in yellow) with a representation of how the axis of damaging forces would be redirected.

If you chose good materials and did a good job, there's no reason this repair/reinforcement shouldn't last as long as the original bracket did or even longer.