Admiral 20X122 Update!

[Eric H]

and I got this one for a tenth of the price of the one in Knoxville

This was a Craigslist find, I debated all week whether to call on it or not but the Devil on my shoulder won out and I called last night.

I had to Drive to Yucca Valley CA for this one, about an hour away from me, I'd never been there so it was a fun little adventure.

The set: it's in decent condition, single chassis model, the safety screen is very nice, the cabinet is dull but not scratched up, there is one long crack on the bottom of one of the feet, not visible and easily epoxied for a solid repair.
This set has the metal upper back and all the knobs!

The CRT tested good immediately, no long wait for warm up at all, it's a rebuilt from Continental Electronics dated 11/1957.

The downside, it had been lived in by critters for a long time, note the extra little bit of perforated metal to the left of the chassis, an attempt by someone long ago to keep varmints out, there is another piece of mesh that's been added to the opening under the CRT.

There is also a Factory screen over the rear half of the bottom of the chassis, to keep hands out of the opening in the cabinet, my other set doesn't have this and I never realized it was supposed to.

The chassis has severe rust on the top, the underneath looks fine, the speaker has been completely eaten away along with the Grille Cloth, that sucks because it's a field coil speaker and not easily replaced, I may be able to recone it though since the voice coil looks OK.

The first thing I did was test the CRT, immediately after that I took it apart in my driveway and gave it a Clorox bath, no way was it coming in the house!

I dumped bleach full strength on the chassis, the Mouse Poo foamed up nicely. then I hosed it off all over, I figure the transformer will be dry by the time I get around to restoring it in 5 or 10 years. (just kidding I hope).

Pictures:

[Kevin Kuehn]

Looks like a lot of work. Makes one wonder if the previous owners knew about mousetraps.

[bandersen]

Nice score
Looks like the tuner and IF deck got the worst of it. I have a few extras coils, a whole tuner, a chewed up IF deck and miscellaneous other bits from a 20X1 chassis in case you need anything.

[Billzimm2]

Nice find. At least the aquadag is still intact on your set. My 22x12 has the aquadag all flaking off.

[Eric H]

During my rounds at the various junk stores today one of my finds was a nice little Variac, it's rated a 5 amps which is plenty for most TV work, $18 and it was mine, needs a cord but is in great condition.

I was looking for something to try it out on and this Admiral was handy.

As I said above, this set had been infested with Mice, I took it to work and applied Phosphoric Acid on it to remove the rust, then I scrubbed it off with some Purple Cleaner, this was in addition to the undiluted Clorox bath I gave it at home.

Next I took it out to the wash rack and hit it with the Steam Cleaner with more Purple stuff added.

Later that day, still not satisfied with the cleanliness of the chassis I put it in the Aqueous Parts Washer and scrubbed it some more, then I rinsed it in hot water. Nothing was spared in this process since nothing had been spared the Mouse Pee/Poo, Flyback, Transformer controls all got cleaned and rinsed.

I took it home and baked it in the oven at 170 (lowest it went) for about a half hour to dry it out, now the chassis has been sitting for the last week in the house so I felt it was safe to try powering it up.

I rigged up a power cord so I could monitor the Amperage as I applied the voltage to it, first with just the 5U4, it was OK so I added the sweep tubes.

At 90 volts the set was only drawing 1.0 Amps and I could hear an oscillator running and started hearing the tick of arcing HV so I put in the 5AXP4 CRT and it had a line across the screen.
I eventually put all the tubes in it and it's only pulling 1.6 amps at 120 volts, no smoke or smells and the filter cap is cool as a cucumber after messing with it for a half hour or so.

It's just flat unbelievable how much abuse one of these old chassis can take and still work to some degree.

Sorry for all the wordiness, I'll shut up now and post some pictures.

[Electronic M]

There is something sort of comical about seeing that 5" CRT in a cabinet for a 16" one....

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

There is something sort of comical about seeing that 5" CRT in a cabinet for a 16" one....

It's actually only a 10" set, it's just the perspective that makes it look so large.

[bandersen]

It's cleaning up real nice and I'm glad to see it partially working. I found something like 5 open electrolytics in the last 20X1 chassis I worked on.

[Reece]

I understand that mouse poop is a good preservative, something like cosmoline....

[Kevin Kuehn]

Looking good!

It really is amazing that the set is basically still trying to work. I'm surprised there's anything left of those lables on the back of the chassis after all the cleaning.

Are you going to be painting that chassis then?

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by Kevin Kuehn

Looking good!

It really is amazing that the set is basically still trying to work. I'm surprised there's anything left of those lables on the back of the chassis after all the cleaning.

Are you going to be painting that chassis then?

I forgot to mention Step 1: Spray paper labels with clear Lacquer to keep them from getting wet!

I will probably spray it lightly with some silver paint, it's blotchy because the Mouse urine ate away the plating wherever it touched, which is most of the top. It also turned the control shafts green.
I already painted the accessories like the HV cage, Yoke support and cabinet back.

What I thought was an aftermarket screen added under the CRT appears to be factory because it's attached with rivets. There was a small piece of this attached to the cabinet where the back goes also but it was just stuck under the metal brace across the cabinet, not OEM looking at all.
Maybe back in the day small OEM looking Rivets were easy to come by?

Bob, your the Admiral King can you confirm if other chassis use this screen?

[bandersen]

Yep. That screen is stock on the 20X1 chassis. I used some Rustoleum "Aluminum" paint on this rusted out 20X1. It's a pretty good match to the old cad plating.

[Eric H]

Okay, this is nuts.
I replaced one two section 40@250 can under the chassis, I picked it because i had replacements on hand, apparently it has something to do with the vertical because now I have a full, linear raster.

WTHeck? this set has no business working at all much less near perfect, it was stored poorly, peed on, Bleached, washed, baked and it works this well?
Half my restorations don't work this well without a major fight.

The Focus coil is shorted to the case, or maybe it still has some water inside because it started smoking when I powered it up, I just removed it and insulated it from the chassis and it's fine, I'll open it up later and see if it can be fixed.

The focus is off in the pictures because of the camera, not the set which has decent focus on the 5AXP4.
I don't know if it has sound because the speaker has no cone and the voice coil is open.

[bandersen]

Ha, that's awesome and one of the reasons I like these early Admiral sets. They take a licking and keep on ticking

[Electronic M]

Reminds me of my Zenith porthole set that aside from about 4 maroon drops that were an old repair works pretty darn good with just a new audio output tube.