[TVBeeGee]

Damen, this was a pretty loud bang instead of a loud snap. It was more like a gun firing, so I do hope it was "just" an arc. (We also didn't smell anything, if that provides any more info.) I guess we'll see when I start to get into the troubleshooting, but it will be at least a few weeks before that happens. My wife and I are in the middle of a household move currently, with all the associated chaos that goes with that.

What am I facing if the loss of vertical deflection does turn out to be a bad VOT or vertical centering control? Are replacements still available as old stock or used, or must I track down another set that still has a good one? Can these parts be rewound/rebuilt?

To everyone:
THANKS for your input! You might enjoy a little story about my own experience with a Zenith CCII. My father had one. One day, he phoned me to say that the set was making a loud bang when turned on. I warned him not to run it like that and I would come over a take a look at it. I found the high voltage arcing at the CRT anode cap. So, I discharged it, cleaned it up and put some corona treatment around the area. Powered it up again and found that it still arced not only there but also several other places!

I checked everything in the horizontal and high voltage areas, figuring that something had died causing a regulation problem, but everything seemed to be in order. I finally bought a new flyback. Yep, that was the culprit. It apparently had some shorted turns on the primary side that were resulting in the "Nikola Tesla Experience" at the output side. Fortunately, the CRT wasn't whacked in the process...and neither was I.

That set ran for decades after that with no problems at all. It was still working great when my father finally moved it to the curb after buying his first HDTV. Electronic_M on here writes that Zenith quality stays in even after the name falls off. It's true!