[Reece]

The pilot light does not affect the B+ in a transformer set. Check your electrolytic capacitors. If you installed any of them backwards, this could be the problem. There is a strip on the side of the caps with minus signs on it pointing to one end. The wire from this end will come out of the outer aluminum can of the cap. The positive wire from the other end emerges from an insulating disk. If you find one backwards, replace it with a new one because it will be damaged. By the way, the voltage rating of these caps ought to be the same or slightly above the voltage rating of the original caps. This means that such caps used in the cathode circuits of tubes ought to have lower voltage ratings than the filter caps used in the B+ circuit.

Check all your B+ wiring. There could be a short somewhere causing B+ voltage to be shorted to ground.

Did the transformer pass its test before you even started on this radio? Try this: pull all the tubes. Plug the radio in to the dim bulb tester and turn on, using about a 60 watt bulb. Bulb should not light, or only very dimly. If it lights bright, your transformer primary is bad.

If you got a dim bulb on that test, a good sign, now put all the tubes back in EXCEPT for the rectifier. Plug the set into the wall and see if tubes light. If all is OK watch carefully for a few minutes, feel the transformer, listen, sniff.

If all looks OK, leave the rectifier tube out still. Turn the set over and check the AC voltage between the two plate terminals on the rectifier. Should be several hundred volts. Now check between each plate and transformer secondary center tap. Each should be approximately half of the previous figure.

If all these tests are OK, your transformer is OK and you have a short somewhere in the B+ wiring, or an electrolytic reversed. Don't try the radio again with the rectifier tube until all B+ wiring has been checked.

Download and print out the schematic and then using a highlighter, trace every circuit in the radio, highlighting it when you are sure of it. This takes time and concentration so don't do it when you're tired. Spread it out over several sessions if necessary. It's a good exercise and you'll see how the actual wiring is done versus the drawing. This should lead you to find the problem.

BTW, the cord and plug on that set would have been moulded rubber. Cloth cords went out depending on the manufacturer around 1936-37.

Reece