Chrysler Air Raid Siren

[WillWagner]

I posted some pics of an M725 Ambulance that the Museum is gonna do a resto on and someone saw just the ends of a Chrysler Air Raid Siren sticking out beyond the ambulance..GOOD EYE!
Here it is, it is a runner and I gotta tell ya, that thing is AWSOME! It makes the ground shake when it is running at low RPM. It belongs to one of the volunteers at the Museum. It is a work in progress and Danny wants to eventually put it on a trailer and take it to shows. It has a cracked right bank..passenger side if it was in a car..exhaust manifold. If anyone has one or knows where there is one, please PM me. Attached are some links to some YouTube vids and a pic I took yesterday. One of these days, we are gonna put on the trailer and take it out to the field and give it a test!

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ke9wf3Ajkg[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfaUdJ-jAvc&NR=1[/media]

I'll get more later. One of the guys who has a business 1 block over and 3 or 4 down says he can feel it when it runs!

 

[dc3coyote]

Can you say the worlds greatest back up horn.
That would be great , point toward a house with loud music playing all the time, inform them that the noise ordinances dont kick in till 2200, and you will play with it until they turn down the radio.

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

I would applaud your fine work, but I doubt you'd hear my clapping over that beautiful noise

 

[kurtkds]

One word...



DUDE!!!!!!!

 

[1qwkgoat]

That thing got a hemi in it???

I had to ask.

 

[doghead]

Absolutley awesome! What size/year Hemi, is that? I wonder how far away, can you hear that. Did I mention, that thing is Awesome? Awesome..........

 

[Capt.Marion]

Absolutley awesome! What size/year Hemi, is that? I wonder how far away, can you hear that. Did I mention, that thing is Awesome? Awesome..........

the 1951 331 Hemi V8... putting out give or take 180 hp

An excellent website about them:
VictorySiren.com - Internet Home for the Chrysler Air Raid Siren

 

[doghead]

Wow, great link! Thanks

 

[Chevytruck]

Can you say the worlds greatest back up horn.
That would be great , point toward a house with loud music playing all the time, inform them that the noise ordinances dont kick in till 2200, and you will play with it until they turn down the radio.

i like the way the camera's frame rate matches the fan speed and makes it look like it inst working!

thanks for posting!

 

[alexace]

That is so cool

 

[clinto]

In the mopar hobby, these are highly revered.

 

[quarkz]

I want one.
Got a spare?
It could be used as a Criticality alarm out here at Hanford.

 

[Wrench Wench]

Not that it's not cool to cryogenic standards, but I have a question regarding efficacy. You want an airraid siren to call out to all and sundry the instant you detect the airraid is imminent. "The instant". What kind of warmup time would a V-8 driven airraid siren require from the time the lookout triggered it and the time it could call out across the hinterlands?

For maximum awesomosity, how about mounting it on top of a massive tower on a turntable that's driven off the same shaft as the siren itself?

 

[WillWagner]

Actually, they were originally mounted way up on a tower. When they lit, there was no warm up and nobody there to operate the throttle. There is a belt driven rotation shaft and pulley at the rear of the engine/over center clutch and a belt driven governor at the front. From what I have read, the front driven governor was what controlled the ocelation of the siren. The RPM would trigger the governor, the governor would shut the throttle off until it reached a given RPM then it would accelerate the engine again and then repeat the cycle. The assembly would also rotate as the engine accelerated and decelerated. It required no human interaction except to shut it down. Don't know if any of the attached articles mention it, but at 6' from the horns, it is at 170db. I have heard it will liquify human skin.

Chrysler air raid siren - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

VictorySiren.com™ - The Internet home of the Chrysler Air Raid Siren

 

[alexace]

liquify human skin?

Ow.

 

[Jared]

Very cool. I remember as a kid every Saturday morning in downtown Detroit the Air Raid siren would go off at something like noon or 1PM. Kind of a chilling sound back then. But we were still doing "Duck and Cover" drills in elementary school.

 

[WillWagner]

Us too. As a wee one, I remember hearing the siren. After a bit of digging, I found out it was one of these that was in use at the L.A. Co. fire station on Rosemead Bl. It is 3 miles N. of the elmentary school I went to and I remember it sounded like it was in the school yard. When I hear it, goose bumps still cover me. Do ya think people knew that the duck and cover wouldn't work back then?
Here is another link to a Civil Defence site. I think I posted it before, but now seems like an appropriate time. I got lost there for hours!

Civil Defense Museum-Main Page

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

In the 60's, my father was Chief of the local Fire Department's Civil Defense Reserves in my hometown in NJ. On a monthly rotation we would make the rounds of the firehouses to show the latest Civil Defense Films ( including a cartoon titled "Duck and Cover" ) and then we'd tirp the Air Raid Siren while simultaneously (and in sync) test all the firetruck sirens. It was a BLAST for a 4-10 year old! (Pun intended) I remember the gas driven, tower mounted siren was deafening.

 

[Verkstad]

Excellent ! all you need now is a pair of GE or Sperry Rand 60" searchlights !

 

[GoHot229]

Can you envission a 6-71 blower on that HEMI ? BwaaHaaaHaa