01-02-2020, 08:31 PM
This is where a decent digital camera comes in handy. I take pictures of the underside of the chassis as close as I can and still get a sharp focus. This is a great help to remember what is connected where. I de-solder everything connected to any condenser blocks and make a careful drawing showing what goes where. I then remove the condenser block entirely. I place it with the filling side down on a little tray made from aluminum foil, and put it in a low oven, about 250F. I let it sit there for about a half hour. This melts out all the black goo. I remove it, and then pull out the old guts with a pair of needle nose pliers. Once they are out, it is just a matter of replacing them with new ones. The new yellow poly caps are a lot smaller than the old paper ones, so this is no problem. I fill the extra space with crumpled plastic wrap, and top it off with a piece of paper and then black RTV. If the radio has condenser blocks I just rebuild them all this way. No point in doing one, and then hoping the others don't soon fail.