[jcassity]

im not discouraged,,
i am saying its beyond my capable maintenance.,, !~ i am still very motivated.

I have been getting expert help and when the answers are leading towards "if you had a signal tracer then.........." or,, "I dont know what the problem is either",, that tells me i am way out of my league on this one.

all things point to a bad "something" at the 6sq7.

when the left signal input leads from the upstream IF are disconnected and tube installed , the problem remains.
when the right hand 220kohm resistor is lifted with tube installed, the problem goes away.
when i use jumper wires to pins 7 & 8 from the socket to the tube as it lay on the bench beside the set for the filament, and power up, the problem remains.
when i completely omit the 6sq7 and jumper wire from pin 7 to pin 8 on the 6sq7 tube socket, the problem remains.

I am going to change the few remaining resistors, finalize the replacement filter caps in thier perm home, re-install the 40ohm power resistor, then retest.

the one constant i have is very important.............
when the set is bone cold, 9 out of 10 times the set starts up and works pretty good.
as the set plays over an unpredictable but rather short period of time the voltage on pin6 of 6sq7 starts to degrade and eventually reaches 11vdc,, where the tech specs say i need to have 60v.

so,, two things should be my focus...
pin 6 on 6sq7 voltage degrades and only does so after "something" is loaded up with heat.
by feel, the only "thing" getting hot other than tubes is the one 40ohm power resistor.
all other things are cold as a cucumber after the set has degraded and become nothing more than a noise crackle box.