I've started to restore a great 40-180 that I found at the local antique shop and find myself in need of some help. I'm a complete noob to this type of work and am hoping some of you can provide some advice and guidance for me as I bring this old girl back to life. I have not attempted to power it up and won't do so until it receives some attention.
The chassis seems to be all original to my eye, with the exception of a new power cord and a missing tuning indicator and string. Here is a picture of the chassis before I did a little cleaning with my air compressor and a soft toothbrush:
[Image: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/esantan...G_9796.jpg]
The chassis seems to have had some liquid spilled on it at some point. Can I use some CRC spray cleaner to clean the gunk from the chassis?
While I am not so new to electronics (see some of the projects in my signature link), I am new to old electronics. I don't even recognize a number of these parts
Most of the caps seem to be wrapped in brown paper, but there are other dark brown squarish plastic looking objects with three colored dots on them that I don't recognize at all.
So, where should I start? I presume at a minimum that all of the caps need to go - it seems to be a shame to lose these cool looking original parts... The caps seem to be a bit small to be able to "re-stuff" as I've seen a few do here on the forums.
Hi All;
EricS, first welcome to this restoration part of the group..
The Part in Your second picture is a Coil, which May be Bad, Can't tell from the picture, but the crack doesn't look good..
Second, most Round Paper Caps can be restuffed, as what is available now days is much smaller in size.. The Square Retangular Brown objects are Mica Caps, and usually don't need to be replaced, unless they are in a high voltage circuit and even then most of the time they are ok.. But they should be check like the rest of the Caps..
Replace ALL Electrolitic Caps before Power is applied and All paper caps need to be replaced..
THANK YOU Marty
Thanks, Marty! I did find a schematic for this, which should help a bit.
It's good to know that there are a few things that I probably don't need to replace. It was very nice of Philco to stamp each cap with is value and voltage rating. There appears to be about a dozen of them, some of which are under the tuning adjustment coils. I'll be careful not to alter these.
Hi All;
EricS, Yes for the most part the Electroylitics are in the Cans, But, don't completely count on it, Check your Sehematic.. For the number of E Caps, and then compare that with what you have in the cans.. But as always, some one could have by-passed the cans or put other E caps in Parallel with them, with out taking the cans out of the circuit.. And the Electrolytics need to be either restuffed, or taken completely out of the circuit, they can be left in the Radio for show, but they need to be disconnected.. And new one mounted somewhere under the chassis if you are not restuffing them..
THANK YOU Marty
Eric, nice looking chassis and a lot of room underneath. You may not believe the last statement but it is true. The top side should clean up well, you might try some naval jelly. Messy stuff but effective. What ever you use please remove the tubes and mask off the tube sockets. Those are wafer style sockets and getting anything on them, especially liquid will run down between the wafers. You can't clean it out. All sockets are the same but the rectifier with it's high voltages will result in smoke. Don't ask me how I know. Keep anything away from the sockets!
Others will disagree for certain but on something as clean as yours I would use a small wad of 000 or 0000 steel wool held in a hemostat. I squirt some WD40 on the pad and scrub away. Use a rag afterwards and then your air compressor. Make certain you get all the fines of the wool off the chassis. Do the same blowing under the chassis but careful around the coils and fine wires.
Do a test run on the front and see if it doesn't clean up that area that looks like runs of some kind
Good luck, Jerry
Marty: thanks for the tips about the caps. I guess it all comes down to how original do I want to maintain its appearance. I'll see how much work it will be to re-fill the original caps - it would be cool to maintain its original appearance.
Jerry: I have been looking at a few of the threads here and other web sites and I do agree with your assessment of spaciousness. There is a fair amount of room to work - I just wish I didn't have to remove the row of tuning adjustments to get at those 2 or 3 paper caps....
I'll start making a list of the caps I need and see if i can salvage the paper wrapping from the originals.
I did find a supplier for dial tuning string. Any ideas where I could find the tuning indicator pointer?
Eric, for a discussion on dial string take a look at this discussion. http://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=7332
For the dial pointer, post on the want to buy sub forum here, no telling, someone might have a scrap chassis. If not a picture of one might lead to you fabricating one.
Hi Eric, I'm finishing up the chassis on my 40-190 which is almost the same as your 40-180 except the 190 uses one more tube. I've also restored a 40-150 which uses the same chassis as yours. It's pretty easy to work on this chassis. if you remove the four screws that hold the preset caps and coils to the back of the chassis, you can flip the assemblies out of the way to work underneath. I found that the rear right corner of the chassis as you look underneath was the hardest part for me to work on. just take your time and make diagrams of where things go and you should be fine. As for saving the cardboard cap tubes you can heat them with a heat gun, the wax will start to melt and then you can pull the guts out leaving the shell for restuffing. Then just place the new cap in the shell and fill with hot melt glue. Also check out "Just Radios" link on this site. They sell capacitor kits. For like $90 the send an assortment of the most often needed values for pre and post war radios. I've dealt with them many times and have had great luck. they also have resistor kits as well. I recommend replacing all of the rubber insulated wiring in your chassis. it's almost always dried out and brittle. When you start moving it around and heating it up it usually disintergrates, a lot more work but worth it. As for the dial pointer, I'm in the same boat. Mine is missing as well. I'm going to make something up, it's a pretty simple item and I have my 40-150 to look at for a pattern. here are some pics of my project. [Image: http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500...dc1653.jpg] [Image: http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500...5764ab.jpg] [Image: http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500...b081e4.jpg] [Image: http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500...309451.jpg] [Image: http://i1160.photobucket.com/albums/q500...b10d02.jpg]
The best of luck with your project!
Kevin
Thanks for the tips on dial cord, Jerry! I'll post something and see what turns up. It appears that I need the little spring as well.
Kevin, that is an amazing rebuild! I found your thread a few days ago and think your 40-190 cabinet looks GREAT! I was hoping the whole tuning adjustments assembly would flip up out of the way so I could work on it... I'll also give your technique on the caps a try - I think it would be cool to retain the original shells of the caps. It looks like you replaced the original resistors, too. I haven't looked closely at the wiring. Much of the under-chassis wiring appears to be cloth covered and in reasonably good shape still. I presume the rubber coated stuff is all black.
What did you use to clean the tuner and the rest of the metal on the top of the chassis? It's so shiny that it looks like it's been hit by a buffing wheel, though I presume that is not what you used.
Also, how do you separate the tuning plate glass from the rest of the housing? I removed the two screws, one on each side, but the glass holders wouldn't budge. I was afraid to put too much pressure on it. Have I missed something, or is it just really stuck from age?
Hi All;
EricS, also, I was going to mention it before, but Ohm out the coil that you have a picture of (above) and maybe you will be lucky and it is OK..
I was afraid to try and rewind any coils, but after putting it off for awhile, I bought some blank (junk) coil forms that were like what I had and wound what I might need on them.. That way I wouldn't touch the origional coil form and could use it as a reference, without destroying it by taking off the old wire and not having a reference afterward to refer back to..
THANK YOU Marty
If you guys need dial pointers, I've got two extra ones.. One is from a 46-1226 and the other is from a 46-1209. They aren't the same part number as yours, but the dials look very similar and you might be able to make them work. If you are interested, shoot me a PM. They are free if you want them.
Eric, that wire that has the cracked wax is not likely to be bad. Note how heavy it is compared to the fine red wire just down the coil. No, I wouldn't remove the wires from the coil base for measurement.
I would first locate the coil on the schematic just to see how it is wound. It appears to be two separate coils which would result in only 4 terminals are used. Other terminals may be just tie point used for other wiring.
Set your meter on a low resistance scale as the windings will no doubt be under 10 to 15 ohms. Now if the schematic indicates just two windings and no center taps there should be two pair of connections on the coil that will read low. If one has a center tap, you will have three connections that read low together and one pair that will read low. Make sense?
Jerry
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