Tom has a good start. A good running set without any signal should
give you strong snow & a nice water fall of audio noise. AGC can be
substituted with a little bias box. AGC problems were quite rare. almost always
IF problem gives bad or no snow & washed out pix. I would NOT consider
IF alignment at this point & if you get there replace ALL IF tubes with
brand name NOS tubes first. The 4.5 & 41.25 ( IIRC) can be touched up
after the set is strong. Just flag your diddle stick so you can go back.
73 Zeno

LFOD !
BTW if you have an IF generator you can walk through the IF stages.
Another great little tool is a tuner subber. Strip a click tuner out of
a junk solid state set. Give it B+ & a voltage divider for AGC. Short
the AFT line to ground. All works on batteries OR get one off Ebay !