Fleetwood Constellation Restoration Thread
 

Yes, it's mine. I still can't believe it. This thing is in INCREDIBLE condition. Came with original documentation, everything! (Turns out son of the original owner was selling it, and man, did he take care of his stuff!)

Pictures coming very soon, I need to get some better lighting (first batch is all fuzzy) and some dinner first.

Stay tuned, I can't wait to share this with all of you!

Congrats! Hopefully the CRT and fly are good so you will have more than just an audio console with a dead TV in it at the end your restoration.

Good luck! And don't forget to play some Mac on that thing after you get it working. :D

OK, here we go - some pictures. Apologies if they're fuzzy, it's a cellphone camera as I don't have my "proper" one on hand.

First up: Documentation! Yes, ALL that came with the set!
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00013.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00014.jpg

(also, scored a pair of free baluns from elsewhere but grabbed 'em because I knew I'd need 'em)

Front of the cabinet:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00015.jpg

TV Chassis:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00017.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00022.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00024.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00025.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00027.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00031.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00032.jpg


Turntable:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00029.jpg
Back of radio chassis:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00028.jpg

Tube charts:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00030.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00033.jpg

Flyback is cracked on the outside, but no signs of extensive wax leakage or burning/arcing, which is good. Can't see the getter on the CRT, but it looks in good shape. It's a 21AWP4 from October 1969, mfg by "Canadian Admiral Corporation". Has a giant red sticker on the neck saying "DO NOT USE ION TRAP", and looks to be aluminized.

I also don't see major problems, though I haven't flipped the chassis upside down yet (don't know what to do about that massive CRT yet...)

More pictures later, right now I'm going to have a sit down and flip through all the documentation that came with it.

All the knobs are there, but they're white and powdery, hopefully that will clean up nicely.

If you guys have questions I'd be happy to try answering them. I know there's VERY little about these sets online AFAICT.

Long weekend coming up, so lots more to come!

Pulled the radio chassis, it's a thing of beauty. Will post more pictures tomorrow.

The underside looks so clean I can almost smell the factory-fresh odor, I think its nigh on all original, doesn't look like any replacements have been made.

Have yet to get to the tv chassis, but hopefully it's just as promising! I need to decide what to do about that picture tube though, it's a beast and I'm hesitant to remove it because it doesn't have an implosion band on the glass, just the metal strap holding it to the chassis.

A little more good news, the set _is_ fused (fuse OK), and I found that one of the dial lamps on the radio face is blown. Hopefully that was the flash they saw on power-up.
Nothing looks burnt or toasty that I've seen yet, so it looks _very_ promising.

Flipped through the documentation, includes full service info and schematics for the radio and tv chassis, even bigger bonus since I don't think I'd be able to find those anywhere online.

Chassis for the tv is model #55M16

here's the underside of the chassis... almost like pr0n for those of us that like our sets untouched before we get them ;)
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00035.jpg

One question - those red tubular caps are listed as "molded" instead of 'Paper' in the parts list.

Are they paper-filled and due for replacement as well, or are they a different kind?

Looking at the schematic, this is a mono 6v6 push-pull amp. I'll try to get the schematics scanned and posted for folks to look at too.

Am going to _carefully_ attempt CRT removal later today, then we'll get our first peek at the underside of the TV chassis!

Succeeded in cleaning the knobs, the white powdery crap came right off after a soak in some warm water with a dash of dishwasher powder :)

Nothing better than a pristine chassis (well maybe a few things :naughty:)

I'm pretty sure those are just paper caps in plastic tubes and should be replaced.

Excellent! That works for me every time too :)

Okay, silly question perhaps, but what's the _proper_ way to remove the CRT from the chassis? Do I leave the yoke assembly intact, loosen the strap holding it to the chassis and slide it out the front, or do I unbolt the CRT brackets and remove it strap and all?

Pictures of yoke/front here:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00041.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00042.jpg

Poked around a bit and looked at the turntable. Bearing grease in the motor was solidified, but after a cleanup, all seems to be in order. I might re-grease some of the linkages later, but it's cleaned up nicely.

Disassembly:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00036.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00037.jpg
Bearing cleaning:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00038.jpg
Reassembled motor:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00039.jpg
Complete table after cleaning:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00040.jpg

The mat is in pretty sorry shape, hard and cracked here and there. Might see if I can restore it with some glycerin.

You loosen the strap and slide it out the front, after disconnecting the High Voltage anode from the side and the base connector of course.

You have to be very careful when sliding the base of the CRT through the Yoke assembly, sometimes things have shrunk a little and it will be a tight fit, if you try to force it you can rip the base cap off the CRT.

You might also want to discharge the HV anode on the CRT to ground, if it hasn't been powered on in years it should be discharged but sometimes static can charge it up a little and give you a little zap, not dangerous but startling.

Thanks. That's what I thought initially, but then I saw the various bolts and wondered if that was the best way.
Will give it a go later.

One other thought, sometimes the lip on the front CRT bracket means you have to lift the tube up a little before it will slide out, that might mean you have to loosen the Yoke mount to allow it to tilt up also. If the Yoke is hardwired to the chassis then this is pretty much what you are stuck with, if it plugs in via a socket you could unplug it and remove the whole thing together.

You really need an 8" Test CRT (8XP4) when working on a set like this so you don't have to keep installing and removing a big bulky CRT each time you want to test or tweak something.

See the bottom of this page:http://antiqueradio.org/5AXP4PictureTube.htm

I would probably work on the chassis with the CRT in place, this has it's risks but it might be less risky in the long run than removing and installing that big jug many times.

What kind of risks are we talking about - just general CRT handling risks? I'd like that option since I won't have to deal with finding a safe place to set the CRT.

I'd pondered the possibility of just tipping the chassis on its side (power xformer and HV cage down) but I wasn't sure whether that was something I'd regret doing, because the metal brackets holding the CRT stick out awkwardly from the sides and the CRT wouldn't be sitting completely level or resting on something. Given this chassis comes out of the cabinet tube and all, I would assume the design takes into account a tech pulling it out and flipping it on its side to service it.

I'm talking about the risk of breaking the CRT mostly, if the chassis falls over while you're working on it, or if you drop a tool on it or something of that nature.
A 21" CRT Imploding is not something you want to be near! That said they are pretty robust, the fragile areas are the neck and sides of the bell, it's unlikely to implode just from handling it but a sharp blow to the bell could do it.

I've worked on chassis with the tube installed, you just need to use care when rotating it up or down, make sure it's well supported or tied down so it can't slip, don't allow any stress on the neck and be careful not to stick your hand on the 2nd Anode and you should be fine.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I expected. I'll see about tipping the chassis and how well supported I can get it in that condition - given how awkward and heavy the tube is, I think there's more risk of breaking it from full removal than just tipping the chassis, as you so rightly point out. :)

A'right, I tipped her over to take a look. Unfortunately we broke the "pristine" streak. Someone's been here before...

General overview.
Note the blue wires patched in, those go to the yoke. Probably a repair from when the tube was replaced.
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00044.jpg
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00045.jpg

Blast, there were mice. They've nibbled at some of the capacitors, but apparently this one tasted by far the best. I must make a note of that the next time I'm feeling peckish.

Fortunately, the coils didn't appeal to them very much - that's a good thing. I probably had beginners luck with my 4068, but at least I won't have to find out whether that's the case (knock on wood)
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00046.jpg

There's also a lovely bodge job on a replacement control:
http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00047.jpg

Next step is to photocopy the schematics and trace things out... then I can order up some parts and get re-capping.

I still have a decent stock of resistors left over from my radio job (cheaper to order 5 than just 1, or minimum quantity was 5) so I should be stocked for the bad ones I run into.

In the meanwhile I'll work on the cabinet. Looks to be photo-finish or a print-on of some sort. Top surface is a bit scratched, but should look all right with some elbow grease.

Had a sit-down with the scanner today, worked through the radio and TV schematic info and service docs.

Scans can be found here for those interested, they're at 600DPI so they shouldn't look terrible.
http://vintagepc.co.nr/site/fleetwoodtv/service/

Radio_006 is for the radio chassis, TV_SCHEMA is a stitched full schematic of the TV chassis (it spanned two pages)

I know there's some projects out there that collect these sorts of info on sets, which one would be appropriate to submit this?

Okay, here's where I'm going to need some info from the more experienced folks.

I had a look at the TV chassis and schematic to double check that it matches before I go ordering parts and find out there's a major discrepancy ;)

There's one thing I found that is off - in the schematic, V8 is marked as a 6W6 and has the first audio stage coming in on pin 5. However, in the chassis, this is wired to pin 6 of the socket, and I found not a 6W6, but a 6V6 instead.

A quick search says they're pin-compatible but not exactly interchangeable, any thoughts on this?

Nobody?

Would this thread be better off in the "rectangular tube" section vs the "early B&W" section?
Not sure how much crossover there is from one to the other forum :)

I believe they are basically the same tube. If it works OK, I'd leave it as is. It is much easier to find a replacement 6V6....

6W6's seem to attract less audiophools than 6V6's do. This helps you buy 'em for less on ePay...

Thanks for the info.

Further update: I've gently removed the picture tube so it's easier to manipulate the chassis for the first round of recaps and cleaning. The entire yoke assembly slid right off.

Getter looks good so the tube hasn't gone to air, but I don't have a multimeter right now (need to locate it first) so I can do some basic all-around tests on the important bits before I buy $50 worth of caps to recap the set. (of which about $30 or so is just the electrolytics)

I can't get your schematic links to come up for a look-see, but they would be correct in showing signal coming in on pin 5 (control grid, G1). You indicate the signal is actually going to pin 6, which is a blank pin. Is there evidence of somebody messing with it and miswiring it?

here's the direct link to the schematic, does it work for you?

http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle.../TV_SCHEMA.png

I'm refraining from embedding them because they're quite high-res files.

I took a closer look at the socket and I saw it is indeed wired to pin 5 with a resistor. They used pin 6 as a tiedown point and the resistor was hidden in the mess of stuff coming off it.

The 6V6 heater current is 450 ma, and the 6W6 draws 1.2 amps. That might be a consideration. In an audio output stage, they probably will work in place of each other, as long as the 6W6 heater can be supported without overloading the transformer winding. In a vertical output circuit the sub might not work all the time.

Ah, so in this case it'll help the set transformer run cooler as it's specced for a 6W6. Good to know. :)

I have some investigating to do, as I noticed there is a loose piece of wire (both ends detached) floating around inside the HV cage. I don't immediately see where it is supposed to be attached, and I'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad sign...

I moved this thread to the Rectangular Tube Forum as you suggested.

It would make it easier to follow what you are doing if you uploaded the pictures directly here instead of linking them. There is a size limit for uploaded pictures so you would have to shrink them down but that's pretty easy to do. 600 pixels wide is usually large enough to be easily legible. I think something like 150k is the maximum file size, not sure about the dimensions, there may be no limit as long as the file size is OK.

If something needs to be really high res you could link those images, schematics for instance.

You could also host them on your own Site and use the [IMG] [/IMG]tags to embed them here, however if there's a lot of embedded images and they are all huge it will take a long time to load the page.

Thanks for the move, this forum is probably better suited to it.

I've gone and updated all but one of the posts to now embed smaller versions of the images - the last remaining one I'll have to pull the images from dropbox first as the USB on my phone went south.

Further update on the stray piece of wire I found - it doesn't seem to be missing from anything; all the required connections to the various components inside the HV cage are correct.

When I removed the CRT, there was a cushion between the chassis and CRT support which I suspect was once rubber, but is now rock-hard. Has anyone sourced a replacement for such things before? Looks to be about the size of a standard toilet gasket, might be able to pick up a rubber or neoprene one at the hardware store that would work in a pinch.

http://vintagepc.site50.net/site/fle...l/CAM00048.jpg

Had a poke around with a DMM today, looks promising. CRT has good filament and no measurable shorts to any of the elements, and power transformer/flyback seem to ohm out okay as far as I can tell without unsoldering them.

One question - is it normal for a line choke and VBO transformer to have high resistances (>200 ohms)?

Hello again VintagePC. You surely remember me, as I do remember your earlier
Fleetwood project. I'm glad you found that nice Canadian built TV, with a radio
and phono to boot! I will be away for a few days, but be sure to contact me with
your tube needs, I will be more than happy to help again. Bye for now.

P.S. : note that this TV uses a stacked power supply, meaning that the cathode
of the audio output tube is used as a supply point for lower voltage stages. It
is quite important that the output stage be correctly operating in order for all
the plate supplies to be at the correct voltage. Better have a good working tube
of the correct type in that position. Regards.

I was wondering whether I'd see you again in this restoration thread - Thanks for the offer (and again for all your help with the last one!)

Interesting supply setup for the TV, and indeed something to keep in mind when working on it; more troubleshooting complexity when things go wrong!
The radio side uses 6V6s for the output stage (and while specced for a 6W6, audio output is also a 6V6) so of three total, at least one is hopefully good :)

Current project status is on hold as I'm going to be too busy for a few weeks, but after that I should be ready to order up some caps and get restoring. (There's about $50 worth in the radio and TV combined, $25 of which is the 12 or so electrolytic can sections by themselves. Now that I know the power transformer and flyback aren't open circuit or dead short, I am ready to take the plunge and do the order.

There's some bodgework around the VBO transformer, which appears to have been replaced along with the vertical height control; I don't know whether the picture tube is original but it looks as though at some point the vertical failed. Fortunately no signs of burn-in or damage on the phosphors, so either the tube was replaced or it was caught before any damage occurred. I'll clean up the macgyvering of the transformer (the blue wires I incorrectly attributed to the yoke earlier) but leave the control in place for now unless there are problems.

I haven't found any major problems during my initial inspections apart from a blown dial lamp and some mouse-nibbled capacitors, and all indications seem to be that it should be in working order when recapped. I'd originally thought to do some restuffing but that may be hard with the plastic molded caps, and some of the paper nibbled ones are too far gone (though I did save the ones from my 4068 and could use them instead).

There is no connection to pin 6 on either the 6V6 or the 6W6. Pin 5 is the control grid in both tubes. Sometimes pin 6 on the socket for these tubes is used as a tie point for a resistor or a cap to pin 5, just for the sake of convenience.
If the output transformer is original it may have a 2K to 4K primary impedance, great for a 6W6 but NOT for a 6V6. The 6V6 wants a transformer with a primary impedance of 5K to 6.5K.
Also a 6V6 used with a 2K to 4K transformer will make lots of nasty sounding distortion.

Hope this helps get pretty sound from this set.

Thanks for the extra info, it sounds like it could well be a problem in certain conditions.

Looks like only the VBO transformer is non-original, the others all look as though they are. I'll take a meter reading once I get a chance and post back here. :)

Edit: D'oh... impedance. I might have a meter that does that. have to look and see.

If you measure the primary impedance, be sure to have the speaker connected...

I trust the most likely reason for the 6V6 in the audio output socket is that whoever
installed it did not have a 6W6 on hand, and thought the 6V6 would work. Once again,
be sure that the cathode current on that tube is OK, otherwise much of the circuit
will be disturbed. Bye for now.

Yes, I'll definitely keep a watch on that. I'm seeing that the line from that staged supply is going to the vertical section as well... I wonder if these things are all interrelated - someone goofed and put in a 6v6 for the audio, and then thought "huh, the vertical is off" and the tech replaced the VBO transformer because the staged supply wasn't immediately obvious?

I have to look around some as none of my general use stuff measures impedance but I found a vintage meter amongst my things and I'm hoping that at the very least it is a VTVM... Very possibly I'm mistaken but I thought I saw impedance functions on it as well. I didn't give it a second thought at the time when I found it but now I'll have to dig it up again and see whether it might aid me in my restore. ;)

Got my caps in yesterday and have been working on the radio section.

Looks like it's been rewired for a 5Y4 when the schematic calls for a 5Y3.. Interesting given the 5Y3 seems to be more common.

Recap on radio part is complete, am going to try a careful powerup later today after double-checking I've got the 'lytics in the right way round... Power transformer is good, kicks out ~600VAC (center tapped 300V, this is leg to leg), 5VAC and 6.3VAC with the rectifier pulled, all tubes light up. Will need to source a replacement dial lamp at some point though...

If it cools down a bit I may start recapping the TV chassis... right now it's blistering hot and I don't fancy slaving over a soldering iron to boot. ;)

First powerup results look promising. Nothing caught fire or exploded, so we're off to a good start ;)

No AM reception by the looks of it. I get quite a bit of hum from the speaker at either end of the dial, and it quiets down in the middle. Hum disappears on other inputs (SW/Phono) so it's probably not a power supply filtering problem.

I can pick up some stuff in shortwave mode though, so it would seem that the amplifier region is working and we can narrow it down to the circuit region(s) involved in AM.

Will take a poke around inside and see what I can find.

[Edit: Nothing interesting. All the SW/BC switch does is switch out the coils and trim caps; those aren't shorted or open circuit (as appropriate) as far as I can tell. Logic tells me I'm now either facing a poorly performing tube or the AM alignment is way out of whack. Time to scrounge up a signal generator, I think...]

One question though - I noticed the flyback donut coating is cracked and rather brittle. What do you recommend to patch it up? I should have some friendly silicone (as in non-acetic acid producing type) floating around, but if I can't find it I'll be off to the hardware store...

Started my recap on the TV chassis, quite an adventure and it looks like the vertical section has had a major bodge job done on it way back when - wrong value control amongst other things. I'll keep that in mind if I see vertical problems after the recap, but I'm going to assume it was working as modified first. Parts look to be about as old as the set, so it's not recent.

I generally don't bother recoating a flyback unless there is arcing or corona coming off it after the HV starts working. Most flys are double hidden by a cage, and the back of a set so if they look crummy it is not like anybody will know. When it comes to electronics there is a very low correspondence between looks and ability to function properly...I've seen perfect looking parts be shot, and shot looking parts work perfectly...

Ok. It was a preventative measure I was planning on, I figured once they start arcing the damage was already done and I was hoping to prevent it.

Arcing to external points takes a while to pose a threat, but don't let it go too long. Internal to internal arcing is usually harder to notice let alone cure and tends to mean the fly is on it's way out. If internal to internal arcing takes a path outside the fly (ie. you see a spark jump from one winding to another through the air) then that may be curable by recoating the fly, and should be done right after the condition is noticed to prevent damage.