Page Seventy - A Nice Pair of Hooters

 

Hooters, the Brits call car horns hooters…

Sorry, but it’s such an easy straight line, I must take it.  I want to say it’s the last of the juvenile humor, but it isn’t.  And I’m not proud of it.  I also won’t stop.

I added the Lucas 9H Windtone Instruction Manual to the More Stuff column on the right.  It has some good info for maintaining and adjusting your hooters, see? here we go...

Rootes used two brands of hooters, er, horns, Lucas 9H Windtones, at least for Series IV and V (as far as I know) and for the early models (as someone said on the forums), Clear Hooters F725T Twin Alpine horns (I know it’s model F725 per the Series V Workshop manual, the “T Twin Alpine” part comes from the Clear Hooter ad – see below).

Clear Hooters model F725

Clear Hooters ad showing the F725A Twin Alpine hooter

Alphie clearly should have a nice set of hooters… sorry, there will be more.

I have a set of Lucas and a set of Clear Hooters, neither of which worked when I jolted them with 12 volts, so I performed a postmortem.

(Pic at the top of this post - A General Motors Delco Remy unit was in one of the boxes (or boot, I don't remember) that came with Alphie so it made the photo too.)

Autopsy photo of a Lucas hooter

Lucas hooter after cleaning.
It looks like it should work, but it doesn't

How They Work

Lucas Windtones

When you smash the horn button in a panic, you send electricity to a small electromagnet that pulls against a plunger connected to a diaphragm, pulling it towards the magnet.

The plunger has a “step” that pushes open a set of contact breakers much like the points contact breaker in the distributor.  (See the pics.)  When the contact opens, it deenergizes the magnet, and the diaphragm springs back to its original position.  This process happens many times a second, and the movement vibrates the diaphragm, creating sound.

The low tone diaphragm is slightly thicker than the high tone diaphragm, hence the different tones.  The Lucas horns have a large adjusting screw in the center of the case that lengthens or shortens the diaphragm’s movement giving some further adjustment or tuning of the tone.

The little setscrew near one of the terminals on the outside of the horn would seem to be an adjustment as well, but it isn’t.  The screw pushes against one side of the contact plate to prevent it from bending and permanently closing the contacts over time.  It’s a factory setting, so don’t mess with it.

The internals of a Lucas hooter

Close up of the Lucas breaker/contact point

The set-screw on the outside only adjusts this post,
which only prevents the breaker point bracket from
bending - it doesn't adjust the sound.

Clear Hooters F725(T Twin Alpine)

The Clear Hooters work on the same principle, but the mechanism is different.  The Clear Hooter uses two electromagnets that pull on a metal disc attached to the diaphragm.  The disc has a small plunger at its center, which pushes a set of contacts (like the Lucas),breaking the circuit when the disc reaches the magnets.  When the circuit breaks, the magnets deenergize and the diaphragm springs back, creating vibration and thus the sound.

The breather hole allows the diaphragm to move
 but also allows water in with a good soaking

Unlike the Lucas horn, the adjusting screw on the outside of the Clear Hooter case tightens and loosens a spring which changes how often the contacts break in a second.  So, unlike the Lucas horn, the adjustment screw allows you to tweak your Hooters, I apologize, but there’s more.  

The guts of a Clear Hooters, a bit more robust than the Lucases
but still suseptible to too much water.

Lucas

The high tone Lucas was rusted so with a good cleaning, it probably would work.  The low tone one though had a broken connection between the magnet coil and the contact breakers, meaning the contacts would not open and the diaphragm would not vibrate.

Here's why on of the Lucases doesn't work.
I tried fixing it but bodged the job badly.
(Solder doesn't stick, in case you were wondering.)

After a good cleaning, one of the Lucases kinda worked; it clicks and buzzes, a little.

Clear Hooters

The Clear Hooters were much more rusted, and the autopsy showed that the diaphragm had holes rusted through it, so it would have sounded sick and weak if it worked at all.  The other mechanisms looked to be in decent nick, however.

Cleaned but the rust throughs on the diaphram
means this hooter hoots no more.

Even with mixing parts from the high and low Clear Hooters, I couldn't get either to make more than a click...

The Solution

I needed more Hooters, never enough, and again, my apologies.  I found some more Clear Hooters on eBay.

Straight out of the box, I hit them with 12 volts and a flimsy, buzzy “meeep”.  I hoped they would make me jump, but now I have two more Hooters to play with – will it ever end?

I cleaned the Hooters up, painted them, checked them with the multimeter, reassembled them – they look smashing, by the way – but still the anemic “meeep.”

Aftermarket?  That would give me beefy blast I need, but I really want a set of original honkers, stretching a bit on that one.  

The hunt for a nice set of hooters continues.

Some Speculation

I suspect the diaphragms are the biggest problem.  I think the horns can take normal environmental wetness, humidity, the occasional rain-through-the-grill, but not thorough soakings like sitting under a tree for decades.  Once the diaphragm rusts, it isn’t as flexible as it needs to be.  There is a forum post where a guy fabricated himself some new diaphragms – impressive, but more work than I’m willing to do for a set of hooters – you thought I didn’t have anymore, but you were wrong.

The internal wiring isn’t protected from water other than being in a sealed space.  That space however, has pin holes for air to move as the diaphragm moves.  Once water gets in, the electricals, the contact point especially, corrode.

Old hooters that have been spared the elements continue to hoot, those that drink too much water, hoot no more.

Nice looking hooters that don't work very well

I could have made a lot of horny jokes, but I'm a mature man of taste and manners...

Another Clear Hooters ad

Page Sixty-Nine - Alphie's Night Out: A Tale of Two Tickets

 

Here's a fun little story.

Sometime in the 1970’s, Alphie drove two people to see a movie at the Von Lee theater in downtown Bloomington Indiana, and you’re wondering how I know.

During Alphie’s tear-down (six years ago!), I found two halves of two cinema tickets, one in the console and the other inside the seat upholstery, and because I never throw anything away, I kept them.  Yesterday, I found them again and got curious...

Laying the right half of ticket number 00427 over the left half of ticket number 00428 (hence I brilliantly deduced that Alphie had two people on board), gave me the name of the theater chain, “Kerasotes Theatres” (French spelling no less), which I sent out into the internet ether.  Wikipedia tells me that Kerasotes had “957 screens in 95 locations in California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and Wisconsin at one point.” 

Two tickets overlaid to make one, impressive detective work, no?

Under the chain’s name, it says “Von Lee #2, Bloomington In.”  Back to the interweb, three of the 957 screens were at the Von Lee where Alphie ferried his crew to a movie on screen #2 sometime in the 70’s.  OK, the “sometime in the 70’s” is a guess based on the $1.50 admission, which also fits the time when Alphie still prowled the streets. (And Kerasotes didn't own the Von Lee until 1976.) Someone laid out $3 for the entertainment that night, afternoon?

Alphie had a 1979 Illinois license plate somewhere in the boot or a box, but since Illinois didn’t attach any meaning (still doesn’t I think) to the letters and numbers on their plates other than to identify the vehicle and its owner, I can’t tell where in Illinois he was registered.  Illinois shares a border with Indiana, so it’s plausible that Alphie crossed state lines to take in a flick.  Anyhoo...

Back to the web for some information on the Von Lee theater:

Von Lee Cinema
517 E. Kirkwood Avenue,
Bloomington, IN 47401

The Von Lee in the 70's, judging by the cars

Here's what the web had to say:  “Built in 1928 as the Ritz Theatre by local investors, it was renamed Von Lee Theatre and reopened in 1948 by the Vonderschmitt Theatres chain.

A spacious single-screen cinema now converted into three smaller auditoriums, the theater rests on the border between historic downtown Bloomington and the Indiana University campus.

Purchased in 1976 by Kerasotes Theaters, operations were suspended on May 28, 2000 as the company built two multiplexes in the city, making the historic cinema expendable to their operations.

Now owned by the City of Bloomington, the Von Lee Cinema has been the center of various community efforts to reopen or otherwise "Save The Von Lee", and it has also since been designated a historic site.

However, it has remained dark and the auditorium has been demolished. Offices have been built on the site, while the front section of the theatre serves as a restaurant.”

Per Wikipedia, “After Kerasotes the theater, it faced the wrecking ball. There was a quick response from City Council member Chris Sturbaum to save the history of the Von Lee building.  He lobbied the community to save it and developed a plan to do so.  For many weeks after the first notification of demolition, Sturbaum set up a display about the history of the Von Lee and its significance to Bloomington. He even began to show movies in front of the closed building. Eventually the plan worked and the Von Lee was kept intact.”

The Von Lee preserved with the new offices

All this from two old ticket stubs someone tossed in the console 40ish years ago, you just never know.  That's why I never throw anything away!