B&M 20-AR-10 Restoration

[DesertRick]

HI!
Back after years chasing Los Angeles air raid siren locations. Once I got the original siren list and had it published, I left it up to others to see if they were still there or not.

Anyways, I volunteer at the MDHCA in Goffs, CA. I'm working on an outdoor military display and one of the items in the Cold War display area is a B&M 20-AR-10. The rotor seems to be frozen and there's a crack on the outside housing (where the green line is).

Long story short, there's talk of having it restored to operating condition. What would that consist of? Who can do that? How much? Can we do it ourselves on site? My concern is that crack. Maybe that's why it was taken out of service in the first place. I'd hate to have it fixed, spool it up and have it self destruct. Maybe have it magnafluxed first for unseen cracks?

Thanks, and any help would be appreciated.

Rick

[विंडोज फैन]

Your best option in my opinion would be to talk to B&M about possibly having them do some refurbishment work on it. They still exist today and do offer repair and restoration services for older siren models.

Here's their website: http://www.siro-driftsirens.com/contactbm.html
I don't exactly know how much they charge for doing that kind of work, but if I had to guess, it would be at least over $500.

Given the crack, it's probably better to take it to them or some other professional rather than try to do it yourself because if it's not repaired correctly, it could damage the siren even more.

[DesertRick]

Thanks for the reply. That was one of the first things I did. They don't do restorations or have any info on it either. Since there's only 6 in existence, I'm worried about any replacement parts needed. Restoration could easily get into the $$$$ range.

[Non-Zero]

If the crack is on the stator only and not the rotor, and it doesn’t rub, you probably won’t need to worry about it.

[Eclipse DDS]

HI!
Back after years chasing Los Angeles air raid siren locations. Once I got the original siren list and had it published, I left it up to others to see if they were still there or not.

Anyways, I volunteer at the MDHCA in Goffs, CA. I'm working on an outdoor military display and one of the items in the Cold War display area is a B&M 20-AR-10. The rotor seems to be frozen and there's a crack on the outside housing (where the green line is).

Long story short, there's talk of having it restored to operating condition. What would that consist of? Who can do that? How much? Can we do it ourselves on site? My concern is that crack. Maybe that's why it was taken out of service in the first place. I'd hate to have it fixed, spool it up and have it self destruct. Maybe have it magnafluxed first for unseen cracks?

Thanks, and any help would be appreciated.

Rick

Going back to the original topic...

As "Non-Zero" said, if the rotor doesn't rub against the stator at all, then hopefully all should be ok. My MEZ siren had some terrible fractures in it (some of which I was to blame for), my neighbour put some VERY CAREFUL dabs of weld over them just in case they were weaker than we were thinking, but other than that we didn't attempt to repair them any more than we needed to. It did survive a few full-speed runs a while back, too.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend disassembling the siren and taking a look at the crack from the inside... the stators on this model appear to be very chunky and robust, so it might just be fine left as-is. I don't blame you if you want to edge on the air of caution, of course.

Looking forward to seeing how the restoration goes!