Siren Projects
Moss Lake, Texas, Thunderbolt Siren Project
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In late 2005 I was contacted by the Cooke
County Tx. Emergency Management Coordinator about the community of Moss
Lake Tx. He said that they were looking for some warning sirens and that
he had given them my name and number. It was Cooke County EM who contacted
me about the town of Valley View needing help with
their siren. After talking with the Moss Lake VFD chief I told him that
I had a couple of Thunderbolt sirens that were available. One siren was
the first Thunderbolt siren I had restored and
the other was a Thunderbolt siren I got from the city of Gainesville earlier
in 2005. I told the Moss Lake fire chief that I still needed to go through and
check the Gainesville siren before it could go back into service. That siren
was in very good shape except for a smashed rotator box that was damaged
during removal but the rest of the siren was almost like new.
Below are photos and a description of what was done with these sirens and
their installation at Moss Lake Tx.
Both Moss Lake Sirens After Installation.
 North Location by Marina |
 South Location |
Here are the 2 sirens after installation. Moss Lake VFD used the standard "air pipe up the telephone pole" method when they installed the sirens. The South siren consists of the blower that was with my restored Thunderbolt combined with the chopper/rotator from Gainesville. The North location by the lake's marina has the chopper/rotator I restored combined with the big 6M blower I got from Gainesville. I'm glad that my restored chopper/rotator was combined with the 6M blower because that's the type of blower the siren originally had.
There was only single phase power available at the south location so that siren takes a special startup procedure because there is a static phase converter installed at the sirens power source. The south siren has to have the blower starter first before any other of the motors can be started so it can't be run off the timer. The startup load is just too heavy for the static converter. Hopefully I can eventually track down a single phase blower so the south siren can be run correctly. The north siren location is right next to a large pump house which has 480 volt 3 phase power. An electric company in Gainesville installed a transformer at that location to drop the voltage from 480 to 240 volts and the siren runs great.
Videos Of The Thunderbolts At Moss Lake Texas
|
North Location By Marina My Video on YouTube |
South Location My Video on YouTube |
Condition Of Siren From Gainesville
Click any thumbnail to see larger.
 Chopper/Rotator Unit |
 Old Style 6M Blower |
 Blower With Cover Off |
 Smashed Rotator Box |
 Smashed Rotator Box |
 Chopper Motor-Like New |
Here are some photos I took when I first got the Thunderbolt 1000T from Gainesville in 2005. The photo at upper left shows the siren in the pile at the city lot. I got a few other older vintage Thunderbolts and a 2t22 at the same time. See the 2t22 here.
This Moss Lake Thunderbolt 1000T chopper/rotator is a late 1970s vintage unit. The blower for the late 70's unit was badly damaged with a smashed blower motor and completely rusted air relief valve so I salvaged just the blower unit and left the rest up at the lot. There was another earlier vintage blower that was in very good condition so that's the blower I got to use with the 1000T Moss Lake siren. The blower appeared to have had some work done to it and was pretty clean. This blower had some pieces of steel angle welded to the blower frame so it sits higher than a standard Thunderbolt blower. The cover to the older vintage blower was cut up so I used the blower cover from the late 70s Thunderbolt which still has the original yellow paint and the FS Thunderbolt decals in good shape which was a plus.(Center and upper right photo.) The rotator box had been completely ruined when the siren was removed. (Lower left and center photo.) Straightening was impossible so I had a new rotator box built. (See below) The photo at lower right shows the chopper motor field and armature. The chopper motor condition was amazing being almost like new.
New Rotator Box
I had Garland Sheetmetal on Platinum Street in Garland Tx. build a new rotator box for the siren that came from Gainesville Tx. and it turned out great. They even soldered the top tube joint.
Moss Lake Thunderbolt Blowers
Here are the two blowers for the Moss Lake sirens. The smaller blower on the left in the photo is the later version (Sutorbilt 4M) A Series Thunderbolt blower. The blower on the right is the earlier version (Sutorbilt 6M) A-Series Thunderbolt blower. The difference is obvious from the photo. The blower farthest from the camera is the blower from my restored Thunderbolt siren and the blower closest to the camera came from Gainesville, Texas as mentioned above.
Both Sirens Almost Ready To Go
