[adamrobertg]

Thanks for all the responses! I guess what I thought would be a simple 'few new capacitors and hope it works' is really going to be a bit more... involved.

Ron, you mention that there is still a risk even if I disassemble the transformer covers and replace the rubber coating... would that be if the wiring underneath the paper has already shorted? And amateur question; to check for shorts, am I basically just checking to make sure there is no continuity between windings, and checking the ohms for each winding to make sure they're close to the schematic?

I guess regardless, I should probably check each winding first to make sure I'm not dealing with a bad transformer before I do all this work.

David, thanks for the link to the schematic. It seems very well labeled, and I notice the transformer colors are labeled as well- that will make it easier. Perhaps an uninformed question: each winding has two wires, one for each end, eg. 2 whites for the primary... is there a difference between either of them? Hypothetically, if I connected the one which is on the other side of the power switch, and switched it with the one connected to the other side of the line... would that matter?

I could not see anything moving around inside that 42 tube, so it might be ok. I did manage to break off one of the tube caps while cleaning the others... oops. I think I can re-solder that, maybe.

In the meantime I've been trying to polish the metal dial surround- it's better, not perfect. Just been using metal polish. What I find very cool is that the presets have stickers on them for local stations, eg. WICC, WOR, etc, many of which are still around.