So now what do I do? Magnavox.

[Eric H]

Some of you may remember this 1955 Maggie from a few months ago, it's a 24" model, it has a separate 6V6 PP Amplifier and two 10" speakers mounted underneath the chassis area.

It would smoke the 5U4 rectifier if plugged in because it had a shorted Capacitor somewhere.

I had pretty much decided to strip it for parts but I really wanted to see it play before I did that.

I took the chassis out and threw it on the bench, I plugged in a solid state 5U4 substitute so I wouldn't ruin another tube and brought it up on the variac.

Nothing seemed amiss, it was getting several hundred volts on the main filters with no apparent distress, however there were two smaller Axial type Electrolytics under the chassis that looked really bad, electrolyte had been leaking out of them and the ends looked a little bulged.

After running at about 90 volts for a few minutes off and on those caps felt slightly warm, I clipped them out and soldered in what I had handy, one was a non polarized cap so I hooked two regular caps with the negative together and the positives at either end, this should be OK except the voltage rating was 100 volts less than the original.

I also replaced an 18k 5 watt resistor going to the HO tube, it had gone open.
After all that I powered it up again, I couldn't tell if it was doing anything so I tried to stick a screwdriver under the 1B3 cap, I got a small shock so I figured it was working.

Time to put it back in the cabinet and see what the big tube would do, hooked up a DVD player and both sound and picture came in full and strong!
The sound on this set will rattle the walls!

So now my dilemma is what to do with it, the CRT works well despite checking weak and having been rejuved on a Beltron.
I can't really see junking it now, maybe hang on until a tube comes along?

Anyway, I put up a short video of it playing on Youtube, pictures can't convey how good it sounds like a video can.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qHqIg1wubs