CrownVic97
Member
So, as many of y'all know by now, I picked up a Federal Signal CTS1S as my first Cal-Spec lightbar and shared about its resto. But, that's not the first CTS I did work on in my years of collecting and restoring. I didn't get around posting about this bar for a long while, but now that it's gotten where I felt it could be shared, I'm doing it now 
.
In 2015, my friend and chief of the Fire Academy of ND had this CTS A1 bar on one of the old trucks that had been retired that year. The original lenses were long gone and he had set it up as clear/red, with clear/red rotator bulbs under the clear lens on the passenger side, solid red lense under the driver with the front and rear CTS bulb assembly set to flash together. After he asked me about the lightbar, I told him how it all worked. He liked that idea and since it wasn't going back to service anytime soon, he wanted me to set it up back to Cal-Specs for his collection, but in the colors it already had.
Well, I brought it back home and slowly got into the project. The first BIG problem I encountered was that the motor side of the lightbar had been exposed to the elements for several years because the lens was not on it (somebody on the crew had worked on it and didn't know how it went back on again correctly) and the weather wore away the teeth on the main drive gears in the gearbox, so only one side would rotate and the other didn't. I temporarily alleviated the issue by putting several layers of electrical tape around the worn gear and basically made a friction drive (as you'll notice the lag of rotation in the video). Other small issues were the screws on the backside of the speaker cover were gone (one side had no bolt catch on the speaker tray), screw holes in the clear lens and speaker grill (have no clue what occurred there), and both lenses had a lot of weathering and battle scars, so I cleaned them up as best as I could get 'em with my methods. I also took time to repaint the big letters and Federal logo on the end cap badges as best as I could get them. It was going to be a display bar on a high bookcase, so I really didn't bother with it afterwards.
First time in my possession to get working again in 2015.
Teardown begins...
Quick cleaning (why I never did a full one is beyond me...)
Lens restoration....as best as they could get
Improvised friction drive solution
End cap badges painted
All closed up
.In 2015, my friend and chief of the Fire Academy of ND had this CTS A1 bar on one of the old trucks that had been retired that year. The original lenses were long gone and he had set it up as clear/red, with clear/red rotator bulbs under the clear lens on the passenger side, solid red lense under the driver with the front and rear CTS bulb assembly set to flash together. After he asked me about the lightbar, I told him how it all worked. He liked that idea and since it wasn't going back to service anytime soon, he wanted me to set it up back to Cal-Specs for his collection, but in the colors it already had.
Well, I brought it back home and slowly got into the project. The first BIG problem I encountered was that the motor side of the lightbar had been exposed to the elements for several years because the lens was not on it (somebody on the crew had worked on it and didn't know how it went back on again correctly) and the weather wore away the teeth on the main drive gears in the gearbox, so only one side would rotate and the other didn't. I temporarily alleviated the issue by putting several layers of electrical tape around the worn gear and basically made a friction drive (as you'll notice the lag of rotation in the video). Other small issues were the screws on the backside of the speaker cover were gone (one side had no bolt catch on the speaker tray), screw holes in the clear lens and speaker grill (have no clue what occurred there
), and both lenses had a lot of weathering and battle scars, so I cleaned them up as best as I could get 'em with my methods. I also took time to repaint the big letters and Federal logo on the end cap badges as best as I could get them. It was going to be a display bar on a high bookcase, so I really didn't bother with it afterwards.First time in my possession to get working again in 2015.
Teardown begins...
Quick cleaning (why I never did a full one is beyond me...
)Lens restoration....as best as they could get
Improvised friction drive solution
End cap badges painted
All closed up
