[Arran]

With regard to the speaker, unless the cone is so brittle that it crumbles as soon as you touch it I would try to repair it, oval speakers with a field coil are not exactly easy to get anymore. There are a few options to re-enforce the cone, you can coat it with fabric glue, contact cement, speaker cement, or Thompson's water seal. Very likely it will only need the tear/crack fixed, and a smear of glue over the area will fix that.
If your solder gun can't heat up the joints on the tube sockets and terminal strips, it may need the tip taken out, cleaned where it goes into the barrels, and retightened. The tips used on Weller soldering guns are kind of weak and break over time, I started using thick copper wire as a replacement, though I may try using steel wire from a coat hanger, all it needs is for the metal to be tinned. A lot of people like using soldering stations but I learned how to work on tube electronics with soldering guns, and old fashioned irons, and still use them. I use a 100 or 120 Watt iron for soldering to the chassis, you can still buy them new for stained glass work but I got mine at flea markets, swap meets, and garage sales.
Regards
Arran