[Al (astral highway)]

Hi there,

Can you clean off some of the dust and crud from the chassis and around the components? Obviously with power down, all electrolytics completely discharged (!!) and leave it well alone until it's dried out again. Avoid getting water in the valve sockets.

First of all brush off as much as you can or use a compressed air source - you can buy cans with a propellant of some kind that blows pressurised air through a thin tube. Then you can use common detergent and warm water or Isopropyl alcohol diluted with 50% water or similar. It's not just appearance; it's a big help if components like resistors are easy to read, not covered up with dust. It will look a whole lot clearer and better. Also, your measurements in circuit of resistor values may even be more accurate if there isn't grot on the leads.

You can use a cloth and then a cotton bud, although I prefer to use a glass fibre pen for resistant bits as it doesn't leave any fabric behind. Again PLEASE MAKE SURE THE SET IS DISCONNECTED AND ELECTROLYTICS ARE DISCHARGED.


Also, some of the cotton covered wires are badly frayed. I can't see clearly if they are risking a short but it's ideal, if they're long enough, to either snip them off at the fray and re-connect them, or carefully wrap thin kapton tape around them (not household insulating tape).

I think the wax may have been dripped onto the IFT cores to make them tamper-proof at some point.