is there any way to work on the RF or IF signal without a signal generator
your saying I need a signal generator and that this radio is grounded until then
yup. Makes troubleshooting easier and you'll need it for the alignment too.
what would you suggest to buy and looking at my shelves I have a Conair signal tracer I forgot I even had what would it be used for thanks
A signal tracer is a tool to help track down which stage of your radio is not working correctly. If you inject a modulated rf signal from your signal generator into at the antenna of your radio, and if all is working well, you should hear the audio tone from the generator (usually 400 hz or 1000hz tone) coming out of your radio's speaker. If you don't hear the tone, you can use your signal tracer with its probe to test the grid on each of the stages from the antenna to through to the speaker. The stage where you stop hearing the tone means you just went past something that is not working correctly.
so I should be able to use it to check out the rf stages of the radio I am working on
This is true but that's only if the rf amp and the input to the mixer is working. The IF stages you'll a signal @ 455kc to check it over and align it not to mention the rf section. Since you replaced the caps and some of the rubber wiring it will effect the align to some degree.
before I try anything is there a way to test the signal tracer
it is a Conar instruments model 230
there is a manual and some info available for the Conar 230 on this
LINK.
Check over instructions start at the bottom of pg 15. How to use it on pg 20. Seems like you need a a sg to set this up too. A bit of an overkill for a relatively simple device.
any help I can get will be greatly appreciated
The short answer is plug it turn it on and see if a green semi circle appears on the front panel. If it does your probably ok If there are some issues.