Thunderbolt Restoration

Thunderbolt Restoration Part 1
Restoration of Thunderbolt choppers and horns, and one of these days, a rotator box

Notice: Throughout this restoration section, you can click on any photo to see it at a much larger size. It will pop open in a new window with javascript, and right-click "open page in a new window" won't work. No photos may be taken from this site and used without my permission.

Thunderbolt parts trickle in...

During January and February, I received parts of various Thunderbolt sirens from various sources. First came the horn and chopper of a 1000T from Sherman Texas (pictured right), which turned out to have been robbed of its original dual-tone rotor and fit with a single-tone one (argh!). Next I got a 1000 chopper, chopper housing, horn and horn bracket from Ed Wise at www.sirens-for-cities.org. This 1000 chopper, oddly enough, had a Model 2T rotor installed to make it effectively a dual-tone siren. Lastly, I received the chopper and solenoids of a 1003 removed from Warren, IL.

This is the hideous single-tone rotor that arrived in this 1000T. Perhaps the siren's original dual-tone rotor failed, but more likely it was "junkyard swapped" after removal from service. The dual-tone 6/5 rotors are not as easy to come by as the single-tone rotor, which is still made and can be purchased new.

This next shot is for those of you who always wondered about how big these things are. The answer is: bigger than they look from the ground but small enough to fit up my attic stairs :-D The horn is 52" x 27.75" and yours truly is 69.5" tall. While you're looking at this photo and thinking how unfortunate-looking I am, let me distract you with this question: how many other sirens can you I.D. in this picture?

Next is a close-up of the chopper assembly. As many of you know, the Tbolt chopper is nothing more than a slightly modified Model 2 siren. The differences are the stator and the extra pair of brushes for the rotating power connection. The stator cap on the chopper is not aluminum as on the Model 2, it's actually a fairly hefty chunk of brass or bronze. The patch where the paint looks melted away is where I have just tested the Citrustrip paint stripper spray.

Here is a shot of the chopper's field coils and motor frame. Any Model 2 owner will recognize these as Model 2 parts, which they are.

Here is a shot of my "parts bucket" containing the rest of the 1000T chopper. I use these bins to keep all the little bits and fasteners together. This shot shows a 2T rotor in the bucket, since this is what I will be rebuilding the 1000T with. The single-tone rotor that came in my 1000T is going into the 1000 chopper I got from sirens-for-cities. holes.

One of the first things I noticed when the horn arrived was the crusty rubber gasket stuck to the end. It was pretty well stuck to the horn, very dirty and warped. In the photo at the left is the original gasket (far left) and the replacement I made from fresh new red gasket rubber I found in the Home Depot plumbing aisle. The original gasket has 4 extra holes in it, near the corners. These are for accomodating the 4 extra bolts found on a 1003 that attach the solenoids to the stator. Since this replacement gasket is going on my 1000T stator, I did not need to duplicate these