There are strange things done in the midnight , sun,

By the men who toil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;.....

The above opening is taken from the work of poet Robert Service - "The Cremation of Sam McGee" - one of my favorites of the gold rush in the Yukon.

I seem to relate our hobby to that of the gold prospector constantly searching, but seldom finding the Big One. Then those who do find it really have a tiger by the tail. My prospecting for horns and whistles started many years ago, and the disease spread until the Father of Horn & Whistle, Jack Hardman, impregnated me with the illness. Since the first issue I've suffered from the malignancy, and here is the story of my latest bout with the sickness.

Some 10 or 12 years ago a good friend of mine, Jim Ferree, of Climax, NC, told me about a couple of 27-cylinder radial airplane engines (big ones) and three air raid sirens he had received on a government bid. Being like I am, having a real short memory, I forgot about them.

Recently, say three years ago, I decided to clean my place up; it only lacked a German Shepherd dog tied to a rusty bumper to qualify as an official junkyard. I was telling Jim Ferree of my predicament and being the super guy he is, he offered to help, and help he did. A few days later he pulls in with one of his 40-foot flatbed 18-wheelers and with the help of my backhoe, he hauled off two loads of some good, some not so good junk (Jim is President of the Frick Steam Engine Club and has many, many steam and gas engines and other junk - so my junk found a good home).

About now the reader of this is probably saying, "When is this joker going to tell us about the air raid siren?" I'm getting there. While unloading the last load of junk at Jim's museum, I saw a strange piece of equipment, and asked him what that six-horned monster was. He said, "Don't you remember? I told you 10 years ago about them thar Chrysler Air Raid Sirens".

Lo and Behold!! I struck the Mother Lode! Two hours later we had the three ton beast on Jim's 18-wheeler, making still another thirty mile trip to Chapel Hill. Needless to say, I let the thing "cure" for another couple of years - as if the 1957 jewel needed more rust!

Well, the cure ended last year. I had told several members of our group about owning one of these things, and was embarrassed into doing what needed to be done - to make it roar.

I guess this is as good a place as any to tell you that I didn't do all the restoring. Jim Curtis from upstate New York and Jason Weese from Ohio, both now living in North Carolina, did the major part of it; Jim is the mechanic and Jason the sheet metal expert. I'm in the electrical contracting business and as projects permitted, I'd use the Chrysler for therapy.

Finally the big day arrived. The tool boxes were open, we had a battery, gas, fire extinguisher (you can see we were confident), and knew we'd have it running by noon. Boy, what a surprise! By mid-morning our faces were pretty glum. All the sheet metal had been removed, a telephone pole had fallen across it somewhere along the line. That was the good news. Now the bad - the unit had been out in the weather for years, and water had frozen in it, fracturing the engine block in several places and also one of the heads. Bad, bad news! We pulled the Chrysler A-24, 331 cu. in. 180 HP engine and disassembled it. It was like new on the inside; I doubt that the engine had seen ten hours of service and now it was a basket case. We saved all the parts except the block and the one bad head (Need any parts? They're yours for the asking). Now, finding a 1957 Chrysler A-24 Industrial engine was like winning the New York State lottery (Watch; you fellows will probably find me a half dozen of them now!).

We had two major considerations for a replacement - Horse Power, and by all means the block had to fit, without modification, to the existing bell housing. The drive train arrangement is as follows: Engine, to fluid drive unit, to clutch, to universal joint, to compressor/chopper; really, a well designed system. In searching the automotive books of the 1950's like Glenn's and Chilton's, and heeding the invaluable advice of the sidewalk superintendents, I decided what I thought would meet my requirements; a 1956 or 7 DeSoto or Chrysler - some of the models had an 8-cylinder 330 cu. in. Hemi engine, and the search was on! A week later, at the Raleigh, NC flea market, I met a man who looked the part - you know, kinda greasy like me!

I popped the question to him - do you know where I can find dit da dit da? He says, "Sure, my friend has a DeSoto, it's for sale, etc., etc." Three days later, I'm the proud owner of a 1956 DeSoto Firedome sedan. In the Yukon they'd say, "You found a real nugget."

By now, several months had passed. We stripped the unit down to even some of the welds (to relocate a new gas tank). The compressor, chopper, and horns were left intact; the reasoning - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The unit rotating mechanism was removed and saved. As you may know, this thing not only makes a lot of noise, but rotates 360⁰ horizontally while doing so.

The reassembly went together very nicely. Well, almost. The frame was cleaned and painted, the compressor/chopper and horns (about 2,000# of the stuff) were cleaned and painted. The DeSoto S-23 engine was steam cleaned, brushed, painted; made to look new.

One of the exhaust manifolds on the DeSoto had to be replaced - that's another story - and then the day came for the moment of truth. We had made all kinds of measurements for the block/bell housing and drive shaft spline fit, but we could have erred. We picked the engine up with the front end loader, moved it over to the unit, held our breaths - Hurray! It FIT! A very happy moment. I left the scene, and about an hour later they came to me and said, "You goofed, it doesn't fit!!" Wow, where did I go wrong; all I could think of was 3 weeks of labor down the drain. I was so intent on the bell housing-spline fit that I neglected to measure the distance between the front and back engine mounts. The holes were one inch shorter on the replacement engine! So, pull it all apart and move the front mounting bracket and then bolt it back together again. We got lucky, it really fit this time! I used the radiator from the DeSoto; it was in good shape and fit nicely. After modifying the oil filter - another fit problem - adding oil, water, a new battery, new tachometer, oil pressure and water temp vacuum gauges, voltage meter and new ignition start switch, the key was turned to Start, and with a hell of a roar, the two exhaust pipes (straight up through the hood) came to life. Jim Curtis said "Throw a saddle over the beast and we'll ride her!"

Just to hear the exhaust from the Hemi engine is a thrill. We played with the engine - checked oil pressure, and all the other good things; put on ear muffs, engaged the clutch and WOW - what a thrill!!! Increased RPM to 2,000 and idled it down- the ear muffs were inadequate!

It was at this stage that the rotating mechanism was removed. I hardly think I would have ever used it (except for the possibility of blasting the bystanders!). Also, its removal would lighten the unit by 1,000 lbs - a trailer weight consideration and load on the towing vehicle. In a way, I would liked to have been a purist and restored it to original condition, but the unit (except the compressor/chopper/horns) was in such hopeless condition, that I accepted the option of "Let's make the horns work; after all, it's their spectacular sound I want to hear".

Up to this point, the unit was assembled outdoors, resting on two railroad ties, with the horns pointed in a direction I figured would least bother the neighbors ( we live about 4 miles out of Chapel Hill, NC in the country, but we still have neighbors!).

Now that we knew the unit worked, time came to make it mobile. After a lot of looking around and not finding what I wanted, I remembered (I know I'm slow!) a trailer I had a hand in building a few years ago, and the hunt was on. Finally tracked it down and Lo and Behold, it was for sale - cheap! We stripped it, coated it with a material called Extend (supposed to retard rusting), painted it, rebuilt the brakes, installed new lights, laid down a new treated wood floor, put on a new pair of fenders, and moved the siren onto the trailer. Did you ever try balancing 2+ ton on a tandem axle trailer for a 200# tongue weight? Fun, wasn't it?

Jim and Jason did a fine job, and the plan now is to pinstripe it.

Now, for the first time in three years, we could finally move it, and that we did. I took a tractor and pulled it to an open area near our home. Needless to say, over the last few months, many people heard of the project and this was the day to really try it out. The gold mine was to be a bonanza today.

I climbed up on the trailer, checked the oil and water in the engine, and disengaged the clutch on the compressor. Slipped on the new earmuffs, put my hand on the throttle, and turned the key to Start - the Hemi roared to life! You can't help but have a grin on your face when you hear one of these engines beller through a twin set of 4-foot straight pipes! Well, it all looked good - let's go for it. I engaged the clutch and slowly advanced the throttle - the deep, thomp, thomp, thomp of the chopper gradually increased to a loud, low frequency note to one big roar. The tach passed through 1500, 2000, 2500, 3000--- the ear plugs aren't enough - my body feels it -

What a Helluva experience!!