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Just got into one of three of these chassis and was about to start recapping when I noticed WOW, what a pain this is (or is it?) to get into the center section of the underside of the chassis for recapping. Is there a disassembly process to get to these caps? Any documentation on how to do this? Sorry for my lame description, but I believe it's the RF section of the 630 chassis, center section under the tuning mechanism. Any help or suggestions would greatly be appreciated.
73 de,
Gary/N9VU
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It is a pain with the patented Philco "Unit Construction" chassis'.
See here:
PHILCO SERVICE HINTS & TIPS - NUMBER 2
Philco 1937 Sub-chassis Servicing Tips
The soldering gun idea in the Tip may help you.
Happy New Year!
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I think it is a universal feeling that the 37-38 model unit construction is a total and true pain in the backside, I have yet to hear someone say it was pleasant to work on them.
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It greatly facilitated factory production, but no good deed goes unpunished. ;)
No radio manufacturer then ever intended for their radios to last more than a "lifetime," (or the next model year) let alone 70-some years to be repaired/restored.
It's part of the challenge . . .
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Thanks Chuck and all who've responded so far. I agree with Chuck about radio engineering 70 plus years ago. The last thing on their mind when designing these chassis was to make it easy for old radio buffs like us to restore the set. I sort of wonder how long in the future they expected old sets to be around?
Chuck Schwark Wrote:It greatly facilitated factory production, but no good deed goes unpunished. ;)
No radio manufacturer then ever intended for their radios to last more than a "lifetime," (or the next model year) let alone 70-some years to be repaired/restored.
It's part of the challenge . . .
73 de,
Gary/N9VU
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City: Lexington, SC
Normally go ahead and remove the RF chassis from the main chassis. There are about a dozen wires that can be slipped off from the terminal strips by just heating up the lugs. Label the wires and make a sketch as you remove the wires. Maintain the integrity of the tinned wire ends to make it easy to solder them back later. The wire under the cloth insulation is usually too tarnished to solder well. Then remove the hardware holding the RF chassis and lift it out with the wire harnesses. Not as bad as it sounds.
Richard
