Quote:
Originally Posted by dieseljeep
After working on these old relics for well over 60 years, I learned from my mistakes. For one thing, I never "shotgun" the project. I replace components in stages. Taking out the chassis and speaker and putting it on the bench to check or find out what the real cause is. If the set works, so much the better!
Then do the electrolytics and audio coupling caps.
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That's probably what I should of done with this set, because it was working for the most part, except for the AVC circuit which was acting wonky, it would make distant stations that would come it pretty clear at night fade in and out audio wise which were otherwise coming in really well, and the schematic for this radio didn't have the AVC circuit marked very well.
So that's why I just decided to replace all of the paper caps in this radio because I wasn't sure which caps were part of the AVC circuit in this radio (the AVC Bypass Cap).
Also I know for a fact that this radio's orginal Filter caps are still good in this radio because a.) the radio has no 60 Hz Hum whatsoever, and b.) I just got a nasty jolt from it when I was trying to take the chassis out of the cabinet even after the radio had been unplugged for more than a half hour.
Also the interesting thing is that this radio was bone stock original, there were no capacitors replaced underneath the chassis, it still had all of the original Zenith Capacitors underneath the chassis when I got this thing and it was working like new with the original caps still in place and the capacitors didn't show any signs of having any wax dripping from them in fact about 99% of the original capacitors underneath still had their factory molding marks in the wax on the sides of the capacitors yet.
This radio has all of its original Zenith tubes in it yet except for the 6A8 and the 5Y4 rectifier tube which are the only non-Zenith re-placements in the radio.
Besides the water marks on the top of the cabinet that is presumably from a plant being set on top for years, this Radio was like brand new, almost like it was mostly a display unit for most of its life.
I'm thinking maybe once the family got a TV in the 1950s the Radio just became a display piece, which might explain why it was such a low hours set.