The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench Radio help please

Hello Bolters,
My radio in my 1950 3100 came in a box of parts when I got it. The radio is a 6 volt. When I installed it it worked fine. One year later: Now when I turn on radio I can hear the radio turn on (light also comes on) but NO noise, static at all. Where should I begin? I do not know the history on the radio. It looks like it was rebuilt maybe 10 years or so.
Thank you.
Todd
***Yes, when I turn on radio I hear the "Humming"...but that's it .NO sound.
Note :I have little to No knowledge on Electronics.

When rebuilding these radios, the first step is to replace the capacitors. If you have evidence of that, then you are in luck. At a very minimum you should here the vibrator humming. You could replace the vibrator with a new solid state one and see what happens. If it has already been replaced then a trouble shooting session on the bench is in order.

No experience? Go to/send to, a radio repair person.

Make sure the speaker and speaker wires are good. Try a different speaker. If it's a bad component, you won't fix it yourself with "no knowledge".
If Truckernix will accept it, send it to him. Otherwise you will spend a lot of money. Two shipping's and repair. Consider keeping it in place for looks and installing a modern hidden radio.

We have had members here who with some help restored their old truck radio. I am sure that they get great pleasure out of the accomplishment. When I restore one and get positive feedback, it is a good feeling. Some can't appreciate an old radio working well and there are some who don't appreciate the restored old drive trains working as they did when new.

Todd,
if you care to try to trouble shoot your radio I am happy to help either on here, on Pm or Email.

Now that's an offer you don't get everyday. Good gesture T-Nix

A huge THANK YOU to Fred "Truckernix" Nixon on helping me get my radio working again !! I Owe him big time.

My reward is hearing that you are enjoying the radio!

What was wrong with the radio?

From the view of the electronic components in the radio, it had not been rebuilt or restored. The physical appearance was very nice and all the tubes were new. So it is not worth troubleshooting a radio in that condition. The standard approach is to replace all the paper capacitors and the electrolytics, then troubleshoot the radio. However that wasn't necessary because it worked properly after the capacitor replacement. I think there was a failure of the power supply related to the electrolytic capacitors.