Heirloom item help please

[FrankSinatra]

Seems the sound distortion issue was a simple speaker problem that seems to be corrected now so not a more complicated problem.

I finally talked myself into taking out the chassis for photographs underneath so the team here could give some advice hence the discussion now on apparent Hunts moldseals capacitors in place that everyone suggests should be replaced immediately.

[Lucien Nunes]

"it sounds great again" - you seem to have moved on to changing some of the caps. What really needs to be done to this now then?

That was my suggestion. There are exactly two Moldseals in the chassis; the coupling caps to the EL84s. Seeing as the OP has gotten so far along with this gram and is all set to start enjoying his music on it, there seems perfect sense in purging these likely troublemakers while the back is still off. I'm all in favour of leaving as much original material in situ as possible for historical reasons, but not these two, surely?

[FrankSinatra]

Just dropped it off at a helpful local members place to get them sorted and a line in thanks for your advice in this matter all.

[Silvered_Mica]

Thanks for bringing it round

After powering up it was found that the left channel seemed slightly weak and all the balance control was doing was changing the level of the right channel so I though there was something wrong around the balance control.
Just had the chassis out and it seems to have the most unusual balance configuration (see diagram). I've not seen it done like this before, it really grabbed my eye only seeing two connections on the balance pot. Surely that 150K resistor should be 250K or am I missing something?

I will keep you all posted.

[Silvered_Mica]

OK all done, 4 resistors and 2 capacitors changed out.
All voltages now in there ball parks.
All valves test strong.
Auxiliary socket and ground loop isolator fitted.
Rewired the band change switch so that short-wave is now auxiliary position.
Done a few safety insulation tests and blew the dust out.
Partly re-wired for safety.
Made some speaker adapter plates and replaced speakers
(as old speaker magnets partly trapping speech coils).
Done about 5 hours of soak test with no issues.

Power transformer is running a little hot (no excessive current consumption)
so might need changing in time.
Fortunately it's a 250-0-250 with 6.3v so wouldn’t be difficult to find a suitable replacement.

[FrankSinatra]

Great job done thanks peace of mind and sounds great.

Thanks for all advice on here to this point.

[Techman]

Originally Posted by Silvered_Mica

Power transformer is running a little hot (no excessive current consumption)
so might need changing in time.

I doubt that there's anything wrong with it if no additional load has been added. A lot of these mains transformers run with the laminations almost too hot to touch, it's just how they are. Even a single shorted turn takes a transformer out in no time at all and you'd soon know about it if that was the case, so if the transformer hasn't been given any significant extra stuff to supply current to, then I wouldn't worry about it, I'm sure it'll be fine.

[Silvered_Mica]

It seems to be running a bit warmer than normal however it lives next door to a thermionic rectifier and one of the output pentodes so that’s probably why it seems a little warmer than it should be due to heat transfer through the chassis.

The balance control makes more sense now, it has an off-set potentiometer so when set to halfway point (12 O,clock position) this is not in the middle of the pot.