I know that most of us would like to just listen to the sound of the engine, but if anyone ever wants to repair an old tube type radio for their rod and needs some help, I would be happy to help. I have restored many home and auto radios in the last 15 to 20 years and just thought I could help. Most times the needed repairs are more simple than you would think and we could do it on this fourm or through e-mail, any-how just a thought. Tom
I've had several old Hammerlund,Halicrafters,Nationals and other radios over the years,use to buy em for almost nothing at hamfest-ham radio swap meets about 30 years ago,wish I had kept some of them,ain't nothing sounds like an old AM tube rig.
46international this is what I got.Alittle big for a car.My great grandmothers.It use to work, afraid to plug it in.What do I have?Any idea?
I have boxes and boxes of tubes for um,,lol ,,,I remember when I was little they had a tube tester at a store and you could test a tube to see if it was bad,,and fix yer own radio or television.
Having several '50s vintage vehicles, they all have 6V tube type radios with ********s. Being in the electronics industry I repair the radios myself. Usually the big capacitor at the ******** is faulty, or a tube is bad. Most of them you can get Sams Photofact folders that have the schematic and other information. I go to a good old fashion library with the folders ready to be photocopied. I will keep you in mind for some of the hard to find components for my radios.
did you know you can get many schematics for them from "nostalgia air" on line just click on "resources" ****on and look up make and model.
I got a really nice tabletop Grundig model 2540 U. It worked great until the ch***is got wet................any ideas what to look for?
Tube radios are way cool. Have fixed a few by opening the ******** can and filing the contact points. The cost of a new ******** makes fixing an old one worth a try. It's amazing how well the old sets work. We bought a 55 Buick awhile back and the radio still worked like a champ. Older line powered Radios can have their capacitors dry out from lack of use. When you put full line power to them , the high current will punch a hole through the foil and short the cap out and blow a fuse. The best way to "reform" the capacitor dielectric , is to place a 60 watt light bulb in series with the radio power cord. This will reduce the voltage to the radio and allow the capacitors to slowly "heal" the dielectric. after about 5 min. take the 60 watt out and put the set into full 110 VAC. Good Luck with your old time radio, looks great.
How wet did it get? alittle rain water or a fall in bath tub? After complete dry out, give it a try, but this is a CAR fourm if any one wants to talk household radios PM me. Tom
Well, how loud do you really need Rush Limbaugh's voice to be anyway? Too bad AM radio has completely forsaken rock 'n roll.
I'm lucky; there's a guy five miles from where I live that still tinkers with ancient car radios. I've had him revive several over the years, and I think that the biggest bill he ever handed me was $53.00, and he apologized for that.
Hey thanks for the offer! I'll keep it in mind when one day I find myself with the time to restore my Wonder Bar from my 57 Olds. It's a monster unit and was working pretty well when removed about 20 years ago, but time and dust can take their toll.
Do you have a source for parts? I need an IF transformer for a 49-50 Ford radio. I bought a spare radio and it also had a bad one.
gearhead, I had to rewind an IF transformer for my 37 Cadillac radio, Boy was that a mess but it works. sence then I bought a spare cadillac radio, just in case. Have not had to use it yet, it's been over ten years. There are places on the net to get parts just like anything else. But they most likely would not have your transformer just tubes and viberators, universal stuff. The best thing you could do, would be to do an e-bay search, lots of auto radios on there. they go for cheap, shipping would cost more than the radio. you would not need one with good dial, knobs,etc... so go low-buck and if you don't get that one, there will be many others. Sounds like you will be able to replace it with no help (as you have troubleshot the radio and found the problem) but if I can help you with anything, just ask. you will have to align the radio after replacement, if you don't have a signal generator this may be tricky, we'll figure out something. Tom
The only thing I get on AM is the Holy Rollers and La Cucaracha... But yea, the old tube radios had a nice smell to them. Sure could empty a 6-volt battery in a hurry though...
The rad in my 55 Lincoln just "hums" when I turn it on... Same low hum no matter where I turn the volume to. When I got the car the fuse was blown... I found a guy who says he might be able to fix it if "it is not too crowded" in the case... Any ideas?
I had been working on the electrical of a 59 eldorado and got everything but the radio working. It had front and rear speakers with some kind of echo controller and the speakers actually had their own power supplies and transformers. I kept connecting wires, turn the radio on and nothing would come out, dive back under and change the wires (each speaker took several wires) and try it again - nothing. Damn! i just knew i had hooked it up right, went and reconnected the original way that i had it hooked up and still nothing. I sat there contenplating and figuring what to do next when the most beautiful sound amplified up and out of those speakers. I had forgotten that it took a while to warm the tubes up. I found an oldies AM channel and the sound of that system is irreplaceable.
Two things to consider: 1) The humm is the ******** doing it's thing. 2) you may just have a bad speaker. Try another speaker and see if it gets sound. If not then something else, such as tubes, etc. is wrong. I think I have the schematic for my 54 Lincoln radio, which is probably the same as yours. If I do I will scan and send to you if you PM me with your email address. I will also give you some advice as to what to check.
Good, so the radio power supply and output section may be working ok. does the hum change loudness when you move the volume control? If you can find a model # for your radio see if you can find a schematic through the website I posted about in post #8. Then you can send me a PM and we will see what we can do.
Hey guys, forgive my rudeness! I just "found" your answers to my post when this thread came back up. I will gladly accept help on this, but now I am colplicating things more. I am converting from 6V POS ground to 12 NEG Ground, I have a Voltage drop on the way that will give me like 8 amps of 6 V NEG ground. I read another post on here that indicated that redios with a ******** "don't care about polarity" which I hope is true. I can say that I had hooked the battery up backward (just a dumb thing) and the radio hummed just the same... The radio humms out both the front and rear speaker and the low hum is just the same regardless of volume setting. I will follow up with PM's when I get the info. Thanks to you both!
I love the sound the old tube type radios put out. My wife has a collection of the home radios and they all sound so good I'm tempted to put one in my car. I remember the old days when you you could pick up a strong station (like WLS-Chicago, KOMA-Oklahoma City, KKLS-Little Rock) hundreds of miles away all the way up here in South Dakota. They sounded great and you could listen to the same station for hundreds of miles. Why do the current AM radios sound like **** and have no ability to even pick up a local station? I've used a satellite radio driving to So Cal but it would be neat to go all the way back in time on the road. (And Rush blowhard will never be on my dial!!)
Mostly because of poor antennas. You really need to extend the antenna all the way out, and not compress it all down to look cool. There's a second reason, in that many AM stations now transmit in HD, and you need a digital HD radio to decode it. FM is also digital HD now, and most stations transmit two programs.
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