Welcome Guest! Be sure you know and follow the Phorum Rules before posting. Thank you and Enjoy! (January 12) x

Thread Closed
Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Ford 5MFS car radio
#1

Hi everyone,I am seeking advice on sorting a problem with this radio. It has a permeabilty tuner, the ferrite cores of which are located by threaded brass rods in the "pushbar" which pushes the three cores in and out to tune the preset stations.Originally these three rods were located in the pushbar in some sort of hard rubber or plastic grommets,which had an internal thread in which the brass rods turned,  allowing for alignment of the r.f  mixer and oscillator cores at the factory. What has happened in my set is that the three rubber grommets have all disintegrated such that the cores  are now free to move around randomly. Not good!I have figured out a way to embed same thread brass nuts in RTV in the pushbar so that,once cured the cores will once again be " tunable". I have a signal generator,a signal tracer and a frequency meter but I am wondering what is the best and most straight forward way to get these cores back into synch. Any help and advice much appreciated. Thanks
#2

Hello everyone, 
Readers of the Phorum  may recall that I had a problem with this radio -the ferrite cores in the tuner had come adrift through age  from the "push bar" and were moving randomly.  
As mentioned in the previous post,I had hit on the idea of locating very small brass nuts in the push bar in a blob of RTV ,similar to how some suspension components in cars are located in nylon or plastic bushes,though on a much smaller scale.
This idea seems to have worked. 
Those of you familiar with permeability tuners will know that the cores are more or less in line when working  , each of the three being roughly a similar distance from the pushbar. The devil is in the detail,particularly in regard to the oscillator core. Once introduced into the brass nuts ,though,  the cores could be wound in and out fairly freely and I discovered in my set of aligning tools a tool which engaged perfectly with the  flattened sides of the ends of the brass rods.From there aligning  was fairly straightforward. 
I set the pushbar using the dial pointer to about the position for 750 kilohertz and connected the signal generator ,set to 750 kilohertz to the aerial.The signal tracer was connected to the grid of the r.f. amplifier and that core peaked. Similarly the  signal tracer was connected to the grid of the converter and  the other core peaked .Knowing these circuits were now  in tune , tweaking the oscillator core  (the one in the middle ) to  get the i.f. signal ,  was simple with the signal tracer connected to the grid of the i.f. valve and the i.f.signal  peaked there .Some further fine tuning is required but across the band there seems to be a pleasing linearity. 
I will mention one hiccup which occurred which may be of help to Phorum readers. During the rather physical manipulation of the radio during these proceedings I was horrified to discover that one of the up- till- now intact  cores had broken just below  the point where the brass rod entered the ferrite. Oh no! Where will I ever get another? That's the end of this restoration! Well, I fished the two bits out. The break looked very clean  . There's nothing to lose here - glue it back together and see if uniform inductance  can be restored through superglue.So far it seems it can and linearity,as mentioned above seems okay. 
I'm pleased to have got this set going. Some posts suggest this set comes from a Ford Thunderbird.It seems to represent ,to me . the pinnacle of American  valve car radio engineering with 6AQ5 push pull output and great sensitivity.Equipped with a New Zealand made electronic vibrator it goes well,though the current demand it makes on my bench power supply suggests that the imminent change to twelve volt systems in American cars can only have been timely. 
If anyone has suggestions for other ways of going about solving these problems with tuning I'd be pleased to hear. Cheers everyone,
#3

Glad the super glue worked on the tuner have done the same thing on a portable transistor radio on the ant. Your repair of the tuner is on a much less forgiving part. Have also used super glue to repair globes on both a wick lantern and a petromax style pressure lantern.




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)
[-]
Recent Posts
Philco 610B oscillator wiring
Some info from Beitmans says late production. David   David — 06:06 PM
Restoring Philco 96
Oh wow! Just found this thread.  Brings me back to early days on this phorum.  I did a 96 back in 2017.  Thread here: ...rfeenstra — 06:05 PM
Philco 610B oscillator wiring
Thanks for the replies. It's not the really the hum that I am after. Just trying to understand why only the shortwave ba...Tubester — 04:01 PM
Restoring Philco 96
70 and 90 are Superhets, but at least the 2x45 model of 90 uses the Plate detector (and so does 70). Also the Atwaters,...morzh — 03:28 PM
Restoring Philco 96
Morzh, Prayers for your mom. I am sure that there was enough pain living through the Holocaust as a child. I pray dail...MrFixr55 — 02:19 PM
Philco 610B oscillator wiring
Hi Dan, Divide and conquer. First off trry to differentiate between 60Hz and 120 Hz hum. 120 Hz hum has a higher pit...MrFixr55 — 01:49 PM
Restoring Philco 96
Yes, other than takin a toll on your back, they are undeed way more repair friendly than many other Philcos. To me, som...morzh — 01:04 PM
Philco 610B oscillator wiring
If the wires look like they were this way from the factory (very neat and very dull soldering joints), I'd leave them be...morzh — 12:58 PM
My Philco 37-116 Restore
I managed to open up the Expander Unit and replace the grid cap wires. Tested the connections found they looked good and...dconant — 12:19 PM
610B Oscillator Questions
I've included a picture of the 'actual' schematic I created. I double checked several times and it appears to be accur...Tubester — 09:26 AM

[-]
Who's Online
There are currently 2807 online users. [Complete List]
» 3 Member(s) | 2804 Guest(s)
AvatarAvatarAvatar

>