11-01-2007, 11:35 PM
Hello Loco!! Welcome to the vintage-radio restoration hobby!! There are plenty of good folks here to answer your questions that has been restoring vintage tube type radios for many yrs! Since your vintage radio is working, that is good!! That means all the tubes are still working. Before you turn it back on, replace all the old paper-caps one-by-one. If you examine them closely, you will notice they are different sizes. If they have a old dirty "wax" covering on them, you can go thru the underchassis and identify them on a one by one basis and replace them with modern type capacitors. Just "scrape" the old wax back with your fingernail on each orig individual cap under chassis, and it will be marked somewhere (as you carefully spin it around) with the mfds & voltage ratings. The orig filter cap cans are always mounted on top of the chassis by the tubes. The metal cylindrical can should have values stamped in the metal housing and corresponding leads from the filter can can be identified under chassis by close inspection of the symbols located by each wire feeding out of the orig filter cap. The filter caps need to be replaced immediately in any vintage radio!! These caps have a + side and - side, and polarity of these are important. All the other "under chassis" wax style caps (bypass caps) can be replaced easily one by one by simply cutting the old leads and installing a new "orange drop" of same value in place of the old one. Also, it is "normal" for your dial-lamp to come on brighter at initial power-up from the on-off switch, and them "dim" as all tube-filaments start drawing current from cold start-up! All ac/dc type chassis do that as in design. New caps can be attained from many sources. I personally like doing business with Dave at (http://www.justradios.com) for capacitors. Great folks, fair prices, and fast shipping!! For replacement vintage on off/ volume controls you can check Antique Electronic Supply, (http://www.tubesandmore.com) and see if they have the proper-value control for your retro-fit. Sometimes, you have to do a "volume control shaft modification" to be sucessfull, but thats where a good handy 1/4 inch shaft coupler, and hacksaw comes in handy! Best of luck on your restoration!! Randal