This week we have been mostly replacing perished and exposed wiring around the mains switch/volume pot, the dropper, the scale lamps and the connections to the Output Transformer. I seem to have crumbly wiring almost everywhere - everything I touch just disintegrates and it is clear from a quick visual inspection that there is more to come!
I've also snipped out the old C27, the R.F. Filter cap across the mains, and replaced it with a modern X2 capacitor - I had to rework the original retaining clip to suit the new rectangular profile. The old cap wasn't in too bad a condition, but just pleased it hadn't done the usual Bush trick of disgorging its contents across the inside of the set: -
Along with a great deal of chassis cleaning (very time consuming and laborious) and rust treatment the set is in an advanced state of disassembly although all parts have been clearly labelled and safely stored in one of those plastic cases with lots of individual sections - lots of pictures as well. The metal part that retains the scale lamps and diffuser was very rusty and that has been removed, cleaned and treated. Following a final clean down with IPA it had a coat of Primer then two coats of Lada Cream spray paint (Halfords) - looks almost new!
I've managed to source some s scale lamps with the correct values and a section of Paxolin also arrived in the Post - those are jobs for this week
And of course there is always a BUT ...
When I was connecting the new wires for the Output Transformer it was extremely difficult to get the soldering iron safely to the back of the underside of the chassis to solder one wire. This made me realise that it will be almost impossible to replace any components on the tag board without disturbing something or inadvertently touching the soldering iron against a wire or similar! Notwithstanding that risk, how on earth are you supposed to take voltage readings on the valve pins?? I note that The Trader Service Sheet 1002 has instructions on pages 2-3 on
"Removing Tuning Unit" which I think is almost essential with this set if I have to replace any caps or resistors on the underside?
So what's the collective view of on how easy it is to remove and, more importantly (!), replace the Tuning Unit or can it simply be unbolted and pushed to one side to allow access?