[David Dunlop]

I mentioned I have been taking a closer look at the restoration of my main set Receiver now and am having some second thoughts regarding my original approach to this phase of the project.

Of the two main set Receivers I have to work with, I was initially targeting SN 8349, a late production unit, for restoration. Visually, it is a very clean looking set, which meant no paint restoration work would be required. On the dark side, however, it is missing the complete Slow Motion Drive assembly from the tuner, has one broken connection to be resoldered, but most challenging, the centre terminal wafer on the Mode Switch S2A is totally shattered beyond repair and would have to be replaced. That is where I thought my backup Receiver SN 6691 would come in handy. Once I had used it as a working reference during the restoration of the Remote Receiver, it could become the doner for the necessary parts to restore the aforementioned SN 8349. The more I study the shattered S2A wafer terminal problem, the less enthused I have become about attempting that repair.

Apart from the complete physical disassembly of the two S2A switches, I also have to deal with soldering and unsoldering seven connections, twice, in a very cramped location. And if anything happens to that replacement terminal wafer in the process, I am pooched! So a closer look at Receiver SN 6691 was needed.

On the positive side, it is quite happy having electrons flowing through it. In that regard it provided very helpful information when trouble shooting the Remote Receiver. Three of its valves gave a very low meter response when checked in the set, but that is an easy fix. Yes, it has a lot of dust, cobwebs, nicotine accumulation and some surface rust on some sections of the horizontal bottom chassis, but I am guessing two thirds of that should clean up just fine. This Receiver has definitely had a working life. Also appealing to me is the fact it has the second version of tuning decals on it: the solid black rectangles with the Red and Blue coloured ‘A’ and ‘B’. The Remote Receiver has the last version of tuning decals: the solid black rectangle with white ‘A’ and ‘B’. So keeping this Receiver helps save another small piece of production history for the 52-Set.

The biggest negative regarding Receiver SN 6691 is that the paint and decals surrounding the BAND Switch and FREQUENCY ADJUST Switch are nearly gone from the BAND Switch and could fall off at any time around the latter switch. This is a result of humidity over time oxidizing the plating on the chassis metal underneath the paint in these two areas. The paint loses its bond with the chassis and breaks away very easily. Taking a look at these two chassis plates recently, I have discovered they are mounted to the top of the lower face plate assembly with three screws and only one soldered connection to the upper Aerial Terminal. So it looks like I can swap the good plate out from Receiver SN 8349 and put it on Receiver 6691 very easily, with only a single soldering connection to deal with on each receiver. I can then part out Receiver SN 8349 as needed to keep the project going.

I have attached a couple of comparison photos of the two switch plates in question, along with a vertical shot down the back of the plate on Receiver SN 6691 to show the three mounting screws and aerial connection. The surface rust on the bottom chassis looks worse in the photo than it actually does in real life.


David