I was right, the local 3.58Mhz oscillator is not running. Actually it starts out running when power is applied and tube starts to warm up, but the output quickly shrinks to nothing. Curious...
Voltage readings on the osc tube (V29b in Sams) are all wrong:
Pin 1 (plate): 50 volts, should be 95
Pin 2 (grid): 0 volts, should be -9
Pin 3 (cathode): 0 volts, which is normal
In other words instead of oscillating, the waveform collapses for some reason and the tube is left biased on which drags down the plate voltage. I'm not versed in oscillators, so I tried the following:
Different 6AN8: no change
Different crystal: no change
Removed the quadrature amp tube, in case it was messing with the oscillator: no change
Removed both phase detector tubes: no change
So the question now becomes: what's causing the local oscillator to be unstable? I attached a video, so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. This is the scope attached to pin 8 of the quadrature amp, V28a in Sams.
View My Video