Thank you Jim and All!!!

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Very good information from everyone.? This is certainly a haven of Hallicrafters Experts!!

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Jim, I certainly hope that is the issue as opposed to a bent shaft as was another possibility mentioned by another gentleman.? I do not relish digging the assembly out of its make shift can to inspect the mechanics.? But if I must, then I must.

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In the meantime, just for fun, before any cap replacement, I put the receiver on a variac and slowly brought it up watching for any of that magical smoke to escape.? When I say slowly, I am talking about advancing the variac 10 Vac every 15 minutes or so.? This also helps in reforming some of those old caps along the way, although I will be replacing all of them soon.? By the time I hit roughly 40/50 Vac on the variac I could see dial lights starting to perk up; so far so good.? When I hit around 70 Vac or a little more I was hearing good rushing noise coming out of the speaker; so far even better.? I stopped at around 100 Vac and let it soak more on that looking for that magical smoke, none smelt or seen; just keeps getting better.? At that point, just for fun once again, I attached an antenna to see if it can receive on the BC bands.? Low and behold I was able to tune in strong and some weak stations.? Next was 80M and I was able to tune in some of the more stronger stations, although the dials are off a little; wow looking really good.? So after an hour of playing around, I started creeping up to 110 Vac and let it sit for a little on that.? By the time I hit 120 Vac, only 5 Vac from the incoming line voltage to the house, that is when I could smell the magical smoke; Houston we have a problem.? So I let it sit for a while on that setting and let whatever it was that was baking, although I kept a close eye and hand on the transformer, finish cooking such that I could see the magical smoke or at least a crispy component.? So the culprit turned out to be R68, a 390 Ohm 1W resister in line with the Cathode/Suppressor Grid of the 6K6GT audio tube.? A quick voltage check showed ~22.4 Vdc at that point, yet the schematic shows it should be 17 Vdc.? So a quick calculation indicated that the resistor was actually dissipating ~1.25W of power with the radio sitting on 120 Vac, a little over what it is rated for.? I replaced it with another 1W resistor for now and a new electrolytic cap as well. Now I only move the Vac momentarily from 100 Vac to 125 Vac to check the voltage in the various other areas to see what is really going on at todays higher Vac.? In retrospect I will probably replace that resistor with a 390 Ohm 3W pull I have in my junk box.? But I am debating on whether to change the value to get closer to 17 Vdc when running the radio with 125 Vac input.? I have seen a couple of designs showing a 500 Ohm used in the same situation when faced with the same Plate and Screening Grid voltages.? After a quick calculation 500 Ohms would drop it back to ~17 Vdc when running on our normal home Vac voltages.? Decisions decisions.

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Thank you,

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Mike

W5CUL

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