Predicta Tandem / Penthouse scored

[Eric H]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

Eric, Hop on over to Tioga and C street, Philadelphia 19134. That is where the factory IS today. Philco moved north of town to Blue Bell, PA in the 60's...maybe.

Fred's address should have been
625 East 68th Street
Manhattan, New York

Same as Lucy & Ricky's.

[Don Lindsly]

Philco has many plants in the SE PA area. Spring House, Lansdale, Watsontown, Willow Grove and many in Philadelphia. Blue Bell was the Government and Industrial Division relocated from 4700 Wissahockin Ave in Philly.

TVs were made at Plant 3, C and Tioga until the plant closed in 1975. That was shortly after after the Consumer Electronics business was purchased by the Phillips Group.

[bandersen]

Thanks to tvdude1 and M3-SRT8 I have a cable
Spare yoke, video amp etc. too.

[andy]

...

[Chip Chester]

On my similar vintage car, I've had good luck cleaning wiring insulation with Gojo hand cleaner in the orange bottle. No water, just the stuff, and rub it in, then wipe it off with a damp paper towel.

Chip

[Glenz75]

Yee-ha! You'll be able to get cracking on with this one then?!?!? Like you ain't got enough on yer plate!

[bandersen]

LOL - All in good time I'll do my friends Holiday set first. Virtually identical chassis, but no cable assembly to deal with.

I tried both cable cleaning suggestions and they work quite well. Thanks!

[bandersen]

Orange "Goop" hand cleaner with pumice was on sale so I gave it a try. It not only worked great, but left the cable smelling like oranges
I'm glad that's finally done I found a few nicks in the outer jacket, but no obvious breaks.

[bandersen]

I recently stumbled across a NOS Silverama 21FAP4 on ebay. I looked up the specs and it seemed to me it would work perfectly in a Predicta in including a short neck.
I was a little wary of the sellers feedback though. A lot of complaints about receiving the wrong item.

Sure enough, a week later this box showed up. I immediately knew it was the wrong size and weight. Inside I found a plastic hose


I opened a complaint with eBay and soon heard back from the seller. He claimed his new helper made the mistake and my CRT went to the guy that bought the hose.
He sent new shipping labels to us both, I shipped the hose out and kept my fingers crossed.

A week later a Silverama 24AHP4 box showed up :sigh


But look what I found inside He double boxed it with another Silverama box. So I guess I got a bonus cool vintage box.


It sure is NOS alright. All the original tags and warranty cards are intact.


Here it is next the an original, nearly dead 21EAP4 / SF21. It sure looks like a good fit.


Finally, it tests like new. So I figure it's a good time to get this beast running again

[bandersen]

It turns out that under all the dirt and dust, the chassis is pristine.


Not a single repair and every tube except the two in the tuner is an original Philco and tests good


Same as with my Holiday set, I replaced every paper cap, resistor and network on the sweep board.


The new networks very sealed in epoxy and painted for appearance.


Ready to be re-installed.


I didn't bother labeling the wires. Instead, I cleaned the wires to reveal the color and took reference photos. It's not that hard once you've done it a couple times.

[bandersen]

Now for the flyback. A lot of the coating has melted off and what's left is loose and flaking.
I assume the copper fins were an attempt at cooling ? Doesn't seem to have worked too well. I suspect Tandem flybacks have to work harder the their counterparts in other 21" Predictas because of the long cable.

It does ohm out OK though so I proceeded to clean and recoat it with RTV133.




It's no thing of beauty but will hopefully hold up.

[maxhifi]

Incorrect, your work is a thing of beauty for sure, you've rebuilt
This machine from the ground up! Do you always replace all of the old resistors like that?

[bandersen]

Thanks. I replace them all when they're hard to get at like in Predicta and GE coaxial sets. Much easier to just replace versus lifting up one leg and testing.

[zenith2134]

It's been fun to follow this restoration thread. When it's all done, I'd send the antique shop owner a pic of it running--people get a kick out of that.

[bandersen]

I got some odd readings when testing the tapped filament resistor in circuit so took it out for a closer look.

It turns out that the resistive element inside is fine, but the tap for the UHF pilot light is open.


I got curious and scrapped away the coating around the open tap. Putting pressure on the metal plate reestablished continuity. I noticed some corrosion too.


I'll replace it with some power resistors.