Found a Zenith

[Magnavox300]

Originally Posted by Penthode

Last weekend I spliced in the part of the missing leg with a piece of poplar. I do not know the original wood but the poplar should stain to match.

I am a sucker for these down and out sets. But this roundie deserved to be saved. The chassis fortunately survived in good state.

That's quite an impressive repair to that leg-
Great job!

Magnavox300

[snelson903]

Originally Posted by Penthode

Last weekend I spliced in the part of the missing leg with a piece of poplar. I do not know the original wood but the poplar should stain to match.

I am a sucker for these down and out sets. But this roundie deserved to be saved. The chassis fortunately survived in good state.

thats amazing that chassie looks in better shape laying outside ,than my chassie did sitting inside a barn ,i had wire brush dirt and rust and who knows what off mine.

[Penthode]

Originally Posted by snelson903

thats amazing that chassie looks in better shape laying outside ,than my chassie did sitting inside a barn ,i had wire brush dirt and rust and who knows what off mine.

The set had sat outside two weeks I was told. In that time there was one minor rain shower. Testimony to the good plating used on the chassis was that it escaped relatively unscathed.

I am still looking for the flyback transformer. No luck with Talon or Moyers...

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by Penthode

The set had sat outside two weeks I was told. In that time there was one minor rain shower. Testimony to the good plating used on the chassis was that it escaped relatively unscathed.

The great thing about having one of these metal cabinet sets is you can take it to the car wash and pressure wash it with a little de-greaser and make it like new!

[miniman82]

Excellent work! I agree, sets this downtrodden absolutely deserve to return to the land of the living. A true diamond in the rough!

[hi_volt]

Looks a lot like one of the Zenith sets I acquired in January. Good score! I like the danish modern cabinet.

[Penthode]

I have been doing a bit of work on this set, as time permits, over the last month or so. I stripped the cabinet, restained it in Chesnut Brown and relaquered it with three coats of aerosol laquer.

It was a smoker set so there was tons of gunk to clean off from the interior. I removed the HV cage, removed the HO Transformer and cleaned it fully out. It is now pretty spotless.

I replaced a few cracked coils, the power connector and the curcuit breaker. I fashioned a couple of knobs to replace those missing. Still need the control door.

Fired it up on the weekend and did some trouble shooting. All appears to be in order EXCEPT for the HO Transformer. It appears to breakdown in operation so there is no HV. I called Moyers and await their reply.

[DaveWM]

can you describe the failure mode of the fly a bit more?

[Penthode]

Thanks for the response. Certainly, I shall share my current woe.

Fired up the set and checked basic voltages which appeared okay. I noticed the HO Tube began to red plate after a few minutes and there was no HV. Checked the H Oscillator and it was spot on frequency and amplitude to the HO Tube was correct and the HO Tube bias was about -60volts.

I loosely coupled the scope to the HO Tube plate and saw a good spike. Removing the HV rectifier cap, I could draw only a small arc. I tried disconnecting the various things that might load the transformer such as the convergence assembly, the yoke horizontal coil and the HV would not rise.

I measured the DC voltages on the plate and cathode of the damper and they were the same and there is no boost B plus. Incidently, I removed the regulator cap to ensure it wasn't loading down the HV.

I finally did some resistance measurements and see there is about a 500k ohm resistance from the HV windings to ground. There should be no leakage from this winding to ground unless there has been a breakdown through the transformer frame itself.

Funny as I tried ringing the coil earlier and it seemed okay. It looks like it will breakdown when powered up.

All thoughts are welcome but it looks like the HO Transformer to me.

[hi_volt]

That cabinet is looking might fine!!

[ctc17]

The fly is the last thing I would suspect in a zenith. Make sure you pull the cap off the hv reg tube first and verify its not over regulation or somthing like that. Looking at the schematic I see it has that complex shunt regulator with a bunch of high value resistors. Should be a fly282 and I bet he has it.

[julianburke]

WOW, what a nice job and woodworking for the replaced spliced leg!!

[ceebee23]

oh good luck on this one .. she is a true survivor and I am sure she will payback all the loving care... and I am sure you will sort that HO.

[Penthode]

I unfortunately struck out with Moyers. They were very helpful and did provide me the list of part numbers for replacements: Thordarson FLY-282, Stancor HO-629c and Triad d329. Does anyone know of an alternative source of supply?

On the other hand, I am not averse to ripping the transformer apart to examine what the trouble is. Has anyone ant experience removing the expoxy covering on these things?

The search continues ...

Thanks for the complement on the leg. My furniture repair knowledge was honed by a British book I bought thirty years ago written by Charles Haywood. He was an old time restorer and and the splice technique came almost verbatim from his book.

[jstout66]

Hope you can find a flyback. It is rare for a Zenith to have one go out, but....when I was a kid, my Uncle got a Zenith in on trade. Can't remember what chassis number, but it was the first Zenith rectangular set, so it was a 65 or 66 model. At the time the set was 14 years old. Altho the set came from a spotless home, and saw little use, (the chassis didn't have a speck of dust on it) the flyback was bad. He was going to junk it out, but the cabinet was so beautiful, and with it being a mint space command set, I took it. I had him put in a flyback, and discovered that the picture tube was bad. I had him put in a Zenith Chromacolor tube, and my parents got years of use out of it, before it finally died. Anyway... altho rare (my Uncle was even surprised the flyback was bad) it does happen, and I hope you can find a replacement for yours.