Here's a before photo of my T-54 as found. Besides the rust the fine tuning knob and shaft was completely missing from the variable tuning capacitor. I had to manufacture a 1/8" shaft and solder it into a hole I drilled into what was left of the old front of the tuning cap and also fabricate a new knob out of aluminum and setscrew to match the pushbuttons next to it. The HV supply was not repairable because of a broken HV RF coil so I scrapped the entire stock HV system and built a new 60Hz HV supply into the HV cage using a 6 kV bug zapper current limited transformer, a HV diode and a big capacitor. This set makes a bright image that will not bloom. The HV supply is pretty stiff, and lethal, just like in a prewar TV. I placed a series 100K, 2 watt resistor in the supply output to limit arc current to non destructive levels. The entire set got recapped and the tuner was completely cleaned out with 200 PSI air and alcohol through a solvent gun. It works on all channels.
I also had to locate an old Halli short wave receiver of similar vintage to get a genuine Hallicarafters 'h' emblem button for the front panel.
Rob