This six tube restoration comes from a Ham Fest. On
inspection before dim bulb testing the chassis shows repair attempts.
There are a few capacitors that have been replaced. The Diode bridge had
been replaced with four silicon diodes in a plastic pill box. This will be
replaced with a terminal board and dropping resistor or something more
substantial. There is heavy corrosion of the fuse and just about all
electrical contacts. The power switch shoes high resistance when closed
and may need replaced if cleaning does not help. The power cord has been
kindly cut off.
I clipped a cheater cord onto the transformer primary, plugged
the cheater into a 100 watt dim bulb tester and applied power. The lamp
stayed dim and the radio began to crackle to life. Once on direct line
power the radio picked up stations on the AM broadcast and FM bands.
Rather distorted but this is a great sign. No worries about IF
transformers and the tubes are functional. The selector switch is in need
of a complete cleaning as indicated by extreme crackling when the slightest
tough or vibration occurs. There was no evidence of sound coming
from the left or right tweeters. The EM80 tuning eye indicator is dark.
There looks to be a missing choke on the under side of the
switch assembly. This will have to be investigated and replaced. The
whole chassis need be compared to a chassis for any other modifications.
It turns out these are two long wave band alignment capacitors. The fine
wire coiled around the thick enameled copper stub needs to be wound or unwound
to adjust the capacitance.
Further inspection shows many capacitors are original.
There is a burnt original resistor in the audio section. Perhaps an output
tube shorted or is shorted. This will be thoroughly investigated during
restoration. Also an extended burn in period is to be run to shake out any bad
parts (i.e., the corroded and rusted power transformer.
Restoration Photos
Electrostatic
tweeter is dead.
Corroded contact.
Deteriorated
foam dose not press the conductive film against the contact.
Donor
foam rubber.
Make holes with a hot instrument.
Hot wire slice in two. The wire has been recovered from a cement high
watt resistor.
Hotwire
in series with a 100 watt bulb and variac.
Rust. Sanded and sprayed lightly with clear lacquer for
insulation.
All apart.
Underside
restored.
This needs patched. Most of the veneer was saved and glued back
on.
Most of the veneer was separating from the base.
This gasket turns into powered when touched.
The
bezel receive the standard Clorox Clean up and Magnolia's Glayzit.
The tweeter speaker grills were subjected to the same cleaning.
Good Night.
Silver Mica capacitor Disease The
crashing thunderous roar in the AM band.
After hours of burn-in this radio developed static. It
started as an occasional pop. Like the sound you get when some one turns
an appliance on or off. It just progressively worsened. And the eye
tube seemed to be fluctuating with the AM modulation. So I embarked on the
delicate task of disassembling the IF cans, removing the internal mica wafers
and adding external silver mica 600 volt caps. Join me below.
Take a photo of the wiring to the IF cans.
Get different angles.
After carefully marking what coil connected to which lug I unsoldered the
fine wires.
The base contains the wafer caps.
If the values are not marked on the schematic measure and mark the value
on the base.
Yes with the low voltage of the meter it will read the mica wafer's
capacitance rather accurately
Remove
the rivit.
Wimpy wimpy
Grunt Arg (Tim Alen).
Now that rivet is gone.
pry it apart.
See the caps.
The blackened area is the trouble spot.
Snip off the contacts but leave a bit so the lugs do not fall out of the
base.
Hot melt it back together.
Mount your new caps. 1) 250pf and 1) 150 pf.
Installed.
Now for a quicker way to remove the mica wafers.
Take a wiring picture. Saves schematic tracing.
Move the lower slug out of the way. You will have to aligne the IF
after all this work for accuracy.
See the caps?
Snip the long contacts leaving a bit so the lug stays in the base.
Yes, the coil wires are still attached.
See how short.
Uncut side. And Mark the cap values on both sides. You can not
use a cap meter with both coil wires attached.
The schematic has the cap values marked.
Replace the cover
I use a clam since the hot melt gun is industrial grade heat!
Shoot some glue in the holes.
Move the slug back to where you think it came from. Not critical
since you will be though and do a complete alignment.
Reinstalled.
The sensitivity all bands increased dramatically. I
picked up several beacons on the long wave band below 350khz. The eye tube
stopped bouncing to the music. FM was unaffected. There are not caps
in the FM IFs.
It helps to use an earth ground with the LW reception. There
are no RF bypass caps in this chassis. Besides to bypass (ground) LW may permit
too much AC line current leakage.