[Kenneth F. Besso Jr.]

  I ,,,never use heat on the Capacitors Blocks,,,GOOD sharp Razor knife ,,around the edges,,,needle nose pliers to grab with ,,after you desolder the little tiny wires ,,from the capacitors

[morzh]

There's a thread about restuffing the backelites without the need to unsolder anything.
Works about in 99% of cases.
As for the tar melted, one particular cause is when they soldered large power resistor to it, that disdipates about a watt or more, this did it in my 118.

[Ron Ramirez]

There's a thread about restuffing the backelites without the need to unsolder anything.

...and here it is:

http://www.philcoradio.com/phorum/showth...p?tid=9107

[Radioroslyn]

It's a good time to measure any resistors that where connected with a cap across it. Whether you remove the block all together or leave it in the push the innards out. When you have a cap and a resistor in parallel and try to measure it with an ohmmeter there is a small voltage across the probes. This voltage will charge the cap and won't give you the proper resistance reading. In series your OK.

Terry

[quartermilecamel]

I have now recapped everything but the power line bakelite block and the mica caps.  Just got through spraying down the tube sockets again.  Seems these tube sockets just didnt want to let the tube go!  Seems much easier to remove tubes now.  On to balance pot which I read somewhere is a hum reducing rheostat.  I know that procedure is here somewhere.  Amazed the shadow meter works quite well.  Reading up on that razor blade bakelite rebuild, that would be cool, but some of these blocks were so buried in there I had to take them out/desolder them.

[Radioroslyn]

>  On to balance pot which I read somewhere is a hum reducing rheostat.  I know that procedure is here somewhere.
Is simple just warm the set up and adj for the least amount of hum.

[quartermilecamel]

Thats what I thought but wasnt sure if I turned it too far would hurt any of the 6a3 tubes as I see they are going for stupid amounts of money on fleebay.  I do like the looks of the tops of the 6a3 tubes too because they are the spring filament type.  Not sure if these are better than the ones they are calling hanging filament or just a different way to make tubes.  I should spray the rheostat with deoxit g5 like the tube sockets.

[Radioroslyn]

The adjustment just changes the relationship from the filament winding on the power transformer to ground for the 6A3 tube cancelling the AC hum. It doesn't have any affect on the ac voltage across the tubes filament. Will not cause the filament to burn brighter or burnout the tube.

[quartermilecamel]

just played with the hum rheostat......interesting. hum on either end but in the middle area of adjustment.....no hum.

[quartermilecamel]

Well I think I got the I.F. aligned....it was off a good bit.  Tried to adjust the rest where it says to put the dial at 1500 and the signal generator to 1500.  shouldnt I be able to adjust everything so I hear the signal generators tone at 1500?  I had to move the sig gen dial just to be able to hear it at 1500.  Signal gen is a sg-8 and I used a freq counter...heathkit.  Oh, and I was getting radio stations while doing this.  Not too sure I did the 1500 khz adjustment correctly...unless Im adjusting the wrong trimmer caps.  Adjusting trimmer cap 12 didnt seem to do much along with 31A.  

[quartermilecamel]

Sent off a request to chuck schwark for a readable schematic of this thing. I think i actually did a sucessful alignment of my first radio! I might try it align it again since I did replace some drifting resistors. Still have soft hissing after it warms up at times. Also it will pop out the speaker if the volume is loud enough with base. Not sure what that is. Main question now is I have a hickok tube tester that when I test the 6a3 tubes, the needle is just past the question mark. on both philco 6a3 tubes. Mutual conductance is supposed to be 3000 when pressing the p4 button. Im getting 1500, but when I press the button just to the right of p4, I get the 3000. Am I doing something wrong?

[quartermilecamel]

Really starting to sound good now. Noticed that when the volume is turned up from low it gets louder, then tapers back down softer a bit then starts to get louder as Im turning the volume knob. New volume control in order I guess.
Speaker issues: The center spider cone with 3 spider fingers isnt level. the spider fingers dip in twards the field coil a bit like 1/8 inch. Ideas are: shim out the spider(mark oppat). Assist the spider with something, Reverse the voice coil leads to the output transformer. Yes, I noticed that when I removed the cone to patch suround, I saw that the the voice coil wires cross each other after the suspension wire holder spring. I would think they wouldnt cross and go straight to their perspective output transformer terminals. Looking for pictures of 116x speakers.

[Radioroslyn]

Oh you mean like this...

< New volume control in order I guess.
Would try cleaning the old one as it is control with a tap and switch. Might be a little hard to source these days. Mike was looking for one his 118 don't know if he found one. You can use one w/o a tap but it won't sound as good as you loose the loudness feature ( higher bass at lower volume levels)

Speaker issues: The center spider cone with 3 spider fingers isnt level. the spider fingers dip in towards the field coil a bit like 1/8 inch.
It maybe from the damage cone that you are repairing. If the cone isn't rubbing on the pole I wouldn't worry about it. If it's rubbing then shimming and or re centering w/ the screw in the center may work for you.

I saw that the the voice coil wires cross each other
Speaker shouldn't be an issue as you only have one speaker. If you had multi speakers then the phase relationship will make a slight difference.