[Ron Ramirez]

...making some progress...

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_012.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_013.jpg]

New resistors, a couple new paper caps and a mica cap have been installed.

Now I'm slowly working my way up, toward the volume and tone controls and the electrolytics.

[KCMike]

Looks like your coming along very well Ron. This restore really helps me get an idea of what can be involved with the rubber coated wire. Have not ran into it with any of my radios as of yet.

[Ron Ramirez]

Well, you can see in the photos above how bad the insulation is on some of the remaining original wires.

For safety and reliability, the radio simply cannot be left with wires that have insulation in such poor condition. This is why they are being replaced, one by one. It's one of those things that just has to be done.

I feel like I am finally making some progress. Perhaps by this weekend, I'll be ready to try to remove the electrolytics for restuffing. I'm going to continue to replace all of the wires, installing new resistors and caps as I go. Then I'll remove and restuff the electrolytics and reinstall those. Then I will rewire the IF cans and reinstall them. After that I will reinstall the audio output transformer and attach a new AC cord. The last job will be to hook up new wires, along with resleeving a few wires that run under the band switch where they are inaccessible, for all of the pilot lamps. I'll also have to reattach both dial cords. Oh yes, and make another rubber coupling for the spread band tuning.

In other words, a lot of work remains to be done to this set.

[Ron Ramirez]

More progress:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_014.jpg]

Finally, I am getting to the point that I have replaced almost all of the old wiring with rotten rubber insulation. I've removed both electrolytics and will attempt to restuff them. I still have some components to replace in the vicinity of the volume and tone controls as well as the first audio amp.

I knew this would be difficult. And it certainly has been!

[sam]

ron
I knew this would be difficult. And it certainly has been!
come on your making it look like a walk in the park
sam

[Ron Ramirez]

Many of the caps and resistors have now been replaced around the volume and tone controls.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_015.jpg]

I can't replace any more components in this section until I get the electrolytics restuffed and reinstalled, as one of the caps goes over one of the electrolytics and I need to leave the terminals clear until everything is hooked up to them...only then can I place components in the way of the electrolytics.

So...I know what the next job has to be on this radio...

[Ron Ramirez]

I've restuffed and reinstalled one electrolytic. I now need to restuff the other one.

But I decided to take some time to go ahead and start working on the wiring harnesses that run to the ten (!) pilot lamps in this radio.

For the pilot lamps on the left side of the radio, I used some new wires but had to resleeve two of the original wires since they connect to the band switch in an inaccessible area.

For the pilot lamps that will go to the right side of the radio, I resleeved all five of those wires.

All of these wires terminate at terminal strips on either side of the chassis.

Photos later.

My next job was to make two more wiring harnesses, one for each set of dial lamps (left and right).

I also had the chore of rebuilding every pilot lamp socket.

Here's the lamps on the right side:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_016.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_017.jpg]

The next post will illustrate the pilot lamps on the left side of the radio.

[Ron Ramirez]

You may have noticed that I didn't take any close-up photos of how the wiring assembly looked on the right side of the radio. I forgot. Pardon me.

Here is how things looked on the left side before I began:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_018.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_019.jpg]

The wiring on the right side looked just like this.

As you can see, the original wires were replaced at one time but whoever did the work did not bother to rebuild the pilot lamp sockets. Now, the rubber insulation in every pilot lamp socket has turned to rock and must be dealt with.

But first, a new wiring harness for the pilot lamps needs to be made. Here it is:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_020.jpg]

Now it's time to rebuild all of the pilot lamp sockets. I use my standard procedure for rebuilding dial lamp sockets shown at:
http://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=14963

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_021.jpg]

One down, four to go. I rebuilt the other four in the same manner, then installed the sockets back on the dial.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_022.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_023.jpg]

More to come...

[Ron Ramirez]

Now let's look under the chassis again.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_024.jpg]

The wiring harness going towards the left is a combination of mostly new wires, with two of those wires having been resleeved with color-coded heat shrink tubing since I could not reach those two to replace them at the band switch.

The wiring harness going to the right over to a long terminal strip on the right end of the chassis consists of original wires that have each been resleeved with heat shrink tubing. I could have replaced a couple of them, but opted to just resleeve them all.

Now, a close-up of the right side:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_025.jpg]

It is easier to see here what was done. The resleeved wires connect to a long terminal strip, and another wiring harness starts here and runs up to the pilot lamp sockets on the right side of the radio.

Here is how it looks on the left side of the chassis:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_026.jpg]

The wiring harness from the pilot lamp sockets on the left side of the radio are attached (but not yet soldered) to terminal strips under the chassis. I cannot connect the left side under-chassis wiring harness until I have restuffed and reinstalled the three-section electrolytic and wire both electrolytics up. Why not? Because the wiring harness will interfere with other things yet to be wired back up underneath such as IF transformers, audio output transformer, and electrolytics. Once I have reconnected everything else mentioned, I can then connect the left side under-chassis wiring harness to the appropriate terminals.

[LASJayhawk]

The socket on the transformer threw me for a loop, but I get it now, it's the line voltage selector.

[Ron Ramirez]

It's not the original transformer.

[Chuck Schwark]

Wow!  Love, labour, sweat and tears, and a beautiful job so far.


 
 

[Ron Ramirez]

Thanks, Chuck!

Here's what was accomplished today.

First, I finished restuffing the three-section electrolytic.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_027.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_028.jpg]

Once that was done, I reinstalled the rebuilt capacitor base back onto the chassis.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_030.jpg]

The next photo shows both electrolytics back in place, as viewed from under the chassis:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_029.jpg]

There isn't enough room to put the metal cover back over everything...but there is *just* enough room to place a paper cover over it all.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_031.jpg]

This cover actually was taken from the single 40 uF electrolytic. That capacitor now has a different (newer) cover over it, removed from a CDE cap, which can be seen in these photos.

Now, with the covers in place, you cannot tell that these electrolytics were ever touched:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_032.jpg]

More to come...

[Ron Ramirez]

The next job was to disassemble each IF transformer, replace the wires, polish the cans, and reassemble.

Here is the 3rd IF transformer:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_033.jpg]

All of the wires were replaced with new wires. The same procedure was performed on all three IF cans.

I now have a 1st IF transformer which is very similar to the original. It is a three-section IF which was pulled from a 38-1 console. (Thanks, Sam! )

My goal for this evening was to get all three rebuilt and bolted back onto the chassis. And I accomplished that goal.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_034.jpg]

A closer look:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_035.jpg]

No, they aren't wired in yet, but I will do that tomorrow.

Here's how they look above the chassis:

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_036.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_037.jpg]

I think we're nearing the home stretch on this one.

[Ron Ramirez]

Good news: The wiring is nearly complete!

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_038.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_039.jpg]

Everything is now reconnected save for the audio output transformer and one capacitor.

And that leads me to the not-so-good news...the audio output transformer has one half bad primary. I could have sworn that I tested both sides of the primary, as well as the secondary, before removing it...Well, that's the way it goes.

Rummaging around through my stash of stuff, I found a good push-pull output from a Philco 46-1226. It doesn't match exactly, but may be better than nothing right now. It is intended for use with push-pull 6K6G tubes, and the 42-788 uses push-pull 6V6G tubes.

(I just remembered that I have a 53-960 parts chassis, and if its audio output tranny is good, it may be a better match for the 42-788. I'll have to do some further research on that.)

Nevertheless, I installed ten of those bayonet base LEDs with flexible leads, sold by Pinball Life. Having connected an AC cord, I left most of the tubes out of the set and fired it up.

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_041.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_040.jpg]

[Image: http://www.philcoradio.com/images/phorum...88_042.jpg]

The light moves as the band switch moves, illuminating only the selected band on the dial.

So this is encouraging. Tomorrow, I will install an audio output transformer...and I just might give the radio its first trial run.