Here's the back, before and after it was
repaired.
The repair.
I painted it with THIS.
This won "Second Place" in an award given
by the Ancient Order of Radio Back Repair Men. I'm a
little dubious of this organization. First of all, how can
it be "ancient?" Secondly, how is it that I'm The President?
I've never even heard of them before today.
Only two of the screws holding the back on were
original. To replace the rest, the heads of these were painted to
match them.
I probably should not have used Phillips head screws, but I had a
bunch of them.
The vacuum tubes were checked and
they all tested new or almost new. Two of them
(left) are Realistic "LIFETIME' tubes from
Radio Shack with gold
plated pins. If a LIFETIME tube burned out, you
could get a replacement for free.
Radio Shack was pretty smart. They knew that by the
time their tubes reached the end of their life, so
would the technology. They could sell the LIFETIME
tubes at a higher price, and I'd bet that not many
people asked for a replacement. Instead, they bought
a transistorized AM/FM radio with a cassette deck.
The fact that the tubes were so good had me worried.
WHY are they all good? I could think of two reasons.
1. The owner got a new radio and never listened to
this one again.
2. After replacing all the tubes, the radio still
didn't work and there is something seriously wrong
with it.
This radio has an old speaker type that uses an
electromagnetic field coil instead of a permanent
magnet. This coil is also used as part of the power
supply filter. What If the coil is no good and the
radio doesn't work? Is that why all the tubes are
good?
Before and After.
Recapping was
pretty easy. Except for re-wiring the pilot light
socket and replacing the buried capacitor, there
isn't much to relate.
That big cylindrical filter capacitor (Page
2) has been replaced with the two black and gray filter
caps. They are rated at double the voltage.
Turned on for the first time in (probably)
decades. Is the speaker field coil good? Will the radio
work?
We wait with increasing apprehension as the tubes
warm up.
It's not humming. It either works really well or it isn't
working at all.
WAIT!... did the speaker just make a little pop sound?