Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench A few questions about original radio wiring.

That is correct for ground
The main body of the radio is the intended return

adding a dedicated wire from the inside chassis on transformer side would not hurt.

There should also be a dedicated dial lamp wire to connect to the back of the light switch
The dial lamp will dim with the instrument lights
The dial lamp wire is also switched inside the radio so when the radio is off the dial lamp is off as well
-s

Thanks, there is no dial lamp wire, but I can see the dial lamp wire now, inside the radio, soldered or attached to what appears to be the power source wire. No other extension. Not sure yet how to correct that but will bench test first to see if anything works, then get back to it. Thanks again. d

The design of the radio relied on the chassis being grounded to the case. The tuning assembly is grounded to the case by a soldered braided conductor.

With regards to testing you can power it up with the truck battery through a fuse, (10 A or so). You can use a piece of hookup wire, say six or eight feet long for an antenna. Just bare a bit of the end, maybe double it back if it is too thin and insert it in the middle hole of the antenna socket. Some radios with the electronic vibrator do better with the higher charging voltage, around 7.4 volts. If you are in a steel clad building, you might want to test it outside.

Thanks everybody, and thanks Truckernix for the antenna tip. Bench tested, and it works like a charm! Listened to music for few minutes and got immediately ready to install, just have to order an antenna since the truck apparently has never had one. Who needed a radio driving through grain fields in the old days, but now it will be a nice add to the old truck knowing it works. Nice looking too! Dale

That is good news. I forgot to mention about the dial light wire or feed. Originally the radio would have had a dual off/on switch that switched the main power and the dial light on separate leads. It was common for one of the switch contacts to wear out and stop functioning. The cure for that is to connect both to the working set of contacts. The combined volume, tone switch and power switch used on the truck radio are very hard to find for replacement. Almost all the other radios used a continuous tone control.