GE Portacolor Chassis AB-E

[kf4rca]

Picked up a GE Portacolor from the roadside chassis AB-E. Believe this is the last one made. Cleaned it up and upon powering it up, it immediately went into shutdown. Disconnecting the CRT board, I found it would power up. Checked CRT but no short.
Reconnected CRT board and disconnected HV anode, it would power up also.
Checked HV but got no HV DC. BUT, I could pull a pretty blue arc from the anode lead. How can this be with an integrated HV rectifier built into the transformer. The internal rectifier was shorted allowing AC to pass.
Checked around and a new HV transformer was simply not available and neither were any NTE replacement rectifiers.
So, I would have to go Old School and wire in a 3A3 and socket into the upper corner of the cabinet.
And it works!