Most of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. A Thunderbolt is a old Civil Defense siren. They were also used by fire depts as house sirens. My local fire company has had a Tbolt for years. I was told they got it in '70. It has been there since before I was born of course so it's like a piece of town history. I grew up with it blowing across the street when the fire company got calls. It was basically put out of service years ago. They were having some issues with it and said it cost to much to fix so they stopped using it (they did that a lot for things over there that they didn't want). Well they are working on remodeling the building and the new plans call for it to be removed. I had been talking about wanting it and my dad mentioned that it was on the chopping block so to say. I made some phone calls and as of tonight it's basically mine. I'm getting it for nothing. All I gotta do it get it down. Luckily I'm friends with a guy who can borrow a crane from work or make a stop by someday while working and lower it down for me.

My plans are to restore it and get it back in working order. Then just play with it once in a while. I know it's insane but really how many people have old Civil Defense sirens lol

Here's some pics

 

Awesome.
When you get it working you will have to carry it to the window where the girlfriend is sleeping one morning and wind it up.
It would be great for when friends stay over too.
Or pretty much any unsuspecting soul in the house.
It could be fun.

 

^Thats just....evil....




































I like it.
We used to have some of those around here YEARS ago.
Most of them didn't work. Some are still around, the city never bothered to take 'em down.

 

That thing is too cool. What kind of voltage does it run on? That guy rick from the show "american restorations" redid a WW1 siren and it was just awesome. Good luck, keep the pictures coming.

 

240 is what I keep seeing. I heard they did a siren on there. I need to look it up and see what it was

 

After some research I believe the fire company got it in like 1977. They got it when the new building was built which was dedicated in '77




Still trying to figure out when the last time it was blown. They stopped using it and one year at new years they turned it on and blew it then shut it back off.




Productive couple days though. Got both my RCM panels out and got most of the wires traced. Have one major one to pull and some to disconnect from the Tbolt itself and she'll be ready to come down. Can't wait till she's mine and I can open her up and see how she looks




Here is the RCM panels. The one on the left is a RCM1A the one on the right is a RCM3. The 1003 thunderbolts used the added RCM3's to control the hi/low tone

 

Could somehow manage to hook it up as your truck horn. The train siren has been done a lot, but not a civil defense siren... haha.

That'd be a major pain to integrate into the truck's electric system, though.

 

You would need a BIG generator lol

 

Very nice jinx.

 

that is pretty cool. i wonder how many amps it requires? don't they have inverters for cars in Europe that make 240V. it would definitely wake people up.