Predicta Holiday restoration
 

A friend picked up this set last fall and I'm going to take a whack at restoring it. It's a 1958 Philco Predicta Holiday with 9L37 chassis. The cabinet has seen better days plus the channel knob and antenna are missing, but otherwise it looks OK.
Hopefully, the gunk on the screen will buff out.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7148/6...c669c874_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8447/7...74b5b62d_z.jpg


http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7139/7...0c937918_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8290/7...32fc9fdc_z.jpg

A few months ago I found a channel knob on ebay :)
The CRT has been replaced with a 6 volt version and it tests good. Not great, but good.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7008/6...63b03f6a_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7144/6...ecc616a9_z.jpg

As for the chassis, the fuse resistor had exploded and the thermistor vaporized!
I think all of the components are original.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8430/7...e9ed37b1_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8443/7...633e389c_z.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8437/7...0ab6267c_z.jpg

I dove right in last night and pulled the main board. About half the wire wrap connections had been soldered which made it all the more fun to remove them.

One of the 7-pin sockets is damaged. Anyone know of a suitable replacement ?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8447/7...96b1bb8a_z.jpg http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8425/7...39a90a0c_z.jpg

I certainly will be tuning in for this resto.

:lurk:

Yeah me too, Bob you're a brave man for tackling one of these! :yes: At least with the Philco T&C you've been slightly seasoned to Philco's chassis design and layout!:D
Cheers Glen

Hey Bob! Can you snap a close up of the bad socket for me? I might be able to get an exact replacement for you.

Hi Mark. Does this help ? I'm sure it used to look like the one on the left before it broke apart.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7250/7...c095a7c7_c.jpg

Yeah, the T&C was great practice. Those wirewrap posts are no longer intimidating. Good thing too - I have four more Predictas after this one :D

Yep, that helps a lot! I'll let you know asap if I find one, if I do it's NOS, not a used one.

Cool, thanks.
It turns out this set has had a few more repairs than I first realized. There's an extra electrolytic can under the chassis and a few other replacement parts scattered around.

I also found that in addition to the fusistor and thermistor all 3 sections of the filament dropping resistor as well as the pilot light are open. What the heck happened to this set ?!?
I figure one tap of this resistor was cut when the 6.3v CRT was installed.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8431/7...20cb2e58_z.jpg

That was the chassis that helped bankrupt Philco. Long time dealers dropped their products. They were such dogs.
IIRC, that was the only Philco that used the Zenith type gated beam audio detector.

I finished recapping the main board without any problems :)
Pulled the K4 network too as I've heard they are often faulty. The components to make a new one are in the foreground.
Maybe I should pull the K3 network too ?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8292/7...6650af09_c.jpg

Has anyone tried to make these networks plugable ? I'm thinking maybe reuse some PC board mount tube or transistor socket pins :scratch2:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8441/7...b526ed6d_z.jpg

While I ponder the K networks and search for a tube socket, I'm moving onto the chassis underside. One electrolytic and a bunch of power resistors were replaced at some point.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8445/7...b386e466_c.jpg

One corner is finished so far. I've been using over spec resistors e.g. 2W for 1W and 3W for 2W.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7257/7...d3a20d08_c.jpg

I found one cap held in place by this nifty strap and was able to reuse it.
Very handy :yes: Anyone know where I can get more ?
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7120/7...483c3563_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7258/7...c06efa67_z.jpg

How about these?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-8-CABLE-W...#ht_481wt_1185

OR

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100-Count-Wh...item35bf0f111d

Looks like a clean non-smoker chassis at least. The wires on my Predicta are a sticky, fragile mess that I contend with. That filament resistor is just horrible as mine was opened up/burnt at one spot as well as the leads being all covered with that green corrosion....

Those 12CA5 audio output tubes like to run hot and ruin sockets as you know!

Plugability seems low priority to me. If you build a new network, it may outlive everyone reading this post.

Phil Nelson