[Tubejunke]

I am thinking that some of what you are saying is confusing to some of the real experts here. I don't consider myself to be one of those guys, but I have been working with old tvs and radios for a number of years, so maybe I can point you in the right direction; I don't know.

First you mention using the "wrong ground" in relation to your power supply and said that your chassis has a positive and a negative. In a wild guess I am thinking that you ran into what I believe is termed a floating ground in the power supply. In short the capacitors negative side doesn't wire to the normal chassis ground. Instead it is wired to an isolated terminal which ties in with other components that are wired the same. The electrolytic caps should be sitting on an insulating base so that the negative side doesn't become grounded to the chassis. I hope I am saying this right. But basically if you thought a cap was bad and went to parallel across it and connected the negative side to the chassis, then you would have problems.

By saying that your chassis has a negative and a positive, do you mean that it doesn't have a power transformer and is what we call a "hot chassis?" Perhaps I should just ask if it has a power tranny or not. And by a "neg tube" I see that you are referring to the 35W4 which is a full wave rectifier. It's not a negative tube. Frankly I am surprised that the set employs a 35W4 as I thought that they were found primarily in radios. However, I have only one transformer-less TV set and I think that the 35W4 would be indicative of hot chassis, series strung tube compliment. Most of my sets use 5u4 rectifiers and have a transformer.

I'm really not answering any of your questions, but I do think I am sorting some things out. If you are at the point where you are just trying to get video, but you have a good raster (light on the screen) and sound, then you didn't harm the power supply. If you subbed out a bunch of mica caps, I wonder if you did any wax paper. Both are normally very low value microfarad or picofarad and it is possible that you subbed in the wrong caps. Especially with the micas as you had to interpret the color code of dots. It's real easy to get that real wrong and honestly they are the last caps to give trouble. It's the wax paper and black plastic covered caps with colored stripes for value identification that you need to worry about. And finally you need to beware that your positive negative chassis can get you real hurt REAL fast as the chassis is hot. You must get an isolation transformer and you need to get a decent schematic diagram so you can check voltages. But don't check anything until you are isolated or else unplugged where all you can check is resistance. I hope this helps you. I have learned that you will get more interest from the guys who can really help you if you include pictures. People here love pictures! Good luck with your set.