Well just found the final problem and now I am screwed.
The bad audio was coming from the transformer on the speaker. One of the 3 coil wires used for the push-pull tubes was bad so only one tube was driving the speaker. Oddly it did sound good for just running on one tube until turned up as described above.
So now I am stuck with a speaker that has no PP transformer
Does anyone have an idea where I could find a replacement transformer?
I feel so let down right now after having the radio partially working after all that work only to find the speaker transformer was partially bad.