The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench Radio: hep me decide

Wise bolters' you haven't steered me wrong yet! To wit the AWESOME water pump adapter plate WOW!!! Convincing me to put in a 235 HECK YEAH!!!

Here is the deal, Buck is back in the road in fine style. Fresh 235 is sweeeeet and I'm thinking about the radio now. Honestly, we have two am stations I enjoy listening to alot so no FM for me. Laugh if you want but I enjoy hearing ball games and football announced on AM.

I have a working orig. AM radio. Just finished bench testing the orig. radio and it works!!! Nobody was more suprised than me. It needs refurbishing as the thing is untouched for 50+ yrs.! Buttons work evyerthing and guess what the first thing I hear??? Guess??? A sunday morning preacher in full cry...guys this is just ment to be

There is a competent old school radio repair guy in the area. Here is the question. Should I sell it on EBAY as a good working orig. radio and buy one restored from Jim Carter or whomever you recommend OR should I give it to someone for restore and refurbish?

Gotta say, the truck is starting to become more and more of a nice place to spend quality time...on my head fixing stuff sigh.

PS - I do have a set of new pushbuttons and dials from a certain mail ourder outfit I won't mention...garbage...who sells decent ones?
PPS - I ALREADY appreciate your responses.

If you want a reliable redio, the least expensive idea is to have your original radio restored. Those old filter and paper capacitors need to be replaced as they are notoriously prone to fail. Cost shouldn't be too much especially since it is still working and your lucky you have someone in the area that can work on them. I'm going through mine myself and need to order the plastic bits too. Can you share more about what is wrong with repro parts you bought and where you got them so I can try somewhere else? Likely all the vendors buy from the same source though.

My truck is converted to 12V so I need to deal with that issue. Rather than run a dropping resistor to the radio, I'm converting the radio to run on 12V. You can replace the tubes, vibrator, and bulbs with 12V equivalents. The vibrator transformer needs to be switched to a 12V part too. Here is a neat trick, the '53-'55 Buick radios are similar to Chevy but ran on 12V. The Buick transformer fits the Chevy radio perfectly and allows it to run on 12V and still look, sound, and feel original. Buick radios are easy to find cheap to salvage parts from.

-Ed

I strongly agree w/ Ed - get that one freshened up [especially a solid state vibrator] and it'll be at least as good as paying a suppliers markup for the same work - your local fixit guy might be able to deal w/ new buttons as well

Bill

I agree with Ed and Bill.

Fix your old one. It'll most likely be cheaper to have your local guy refurb it than it would be to buy a different one. Besides, if you're any good at electronics at all, you can do the cap job yourself. If you have a tube tester, you can check the tubes out as well.

You may want to convert the vibrator to Solid State, though. The old tube version was pretty flaky. They blew out pretty often.

TT,
they are really quite simple to work on. If yours is working now, it means that all the resistors are probably OK and changing the capacitors will make it good for a long time to come. There is an Ebay store , I think that it is called "just capacitors". They sell the capacitors at a very reasonable price and they also have schematics for most radios. I use them myself and this year I used them to get the schematic for a 1935 console radio. The schematic cost me something like two or three dollars plus postage.

You guys are DA BEST OK, I'm all in as they say in Texas Hold em'. I like the idea of keeping the old radio and I'm handy in many ways but never learned to solder. If it is as simple as identifying the capacitors and making simple connections I can probable do it. The convert to 12 volts sounds a little rough...maybe the local guy can do it?

I feel a little silly about what I said before about the knobs. After talking to a reliable restorer I learned that the knobs were supposed to come with metal inserts...I did not receive them and stripped out two of the knobs...what a boob I am. This truck is teaching me life lessons everyday.

I've got the radio on my bench right now (see pics below). Oh how I am enjoying listening to the KC / Dallas game on AM radio. Ah, smell the coffee

http://www.ahealinghand.com/images/general/truck/chevyradio1.JPG
http://www.ahealinghand.com/images/general/truck/chevyradio2.JPG

One company that I got my new knobs from was Jim Carter and the metal inserts were not included. I called and they told me they couldn't get them. I ended up ordering another set from Chevy Duty and they did come with the inserts. Jim Carter usually has good stuff, but in this instance, they really missed the boat. That was a couple of years ago, maybe they have changed suppiers. Cecil............

I got a batch of knobs from Jim Carter about six months ago and they were missing the metal inserts. I made some out of carburetor clips.

That is a fine looking radio.The front plastic parts look to be original. That is a real gem.

I enjoyed the cowboy and kansas city game yesterday too, cant help you much on your radio, I have am/fm cd in mine,,, just be sure you can jack the volume up Fred

Heyyyyy I wasn't saaaying WHO sent me the knobs without inserts Anyway I'm partly to blame, once told by someone who knew the deal it seemed obvious.

Yeah big 10-4 on the orig. plastic. I'm going to hit with some plstic polish...gently...this evening and see how nice I can make it look and I'll replace the speaker and foam too...that'll sassy it up.

Tell me again why it is a bad idea to just use a 6 to 12 volt converter? I could keep it all as it is and run 'er that way.

Also, who know where the outside antenna is supposed to be? My truck for some reason has no hole in the cowl! I believe it is supposed to be on drivers side by the windshield.

Just a comment KRIKEY I see that orig. radios go for a small fortune on EBAY. Does that mean I have to lock the truck? Oh, now I have to get locks...sheesh.

I think that you mean a 12 to 6 v converter. There are three terminal converters which will always give you the proper voltage. With a simple dropping resistor, the voltage will vary with the load. I don't really think that it is a big deal.

If you are cleaning up the platic, you won't want to use wood alchohol on the bezel because it will melt it. I know that from practical experience. Oh, also if yours has a straight back, the speaker that is commonly sold by Jim Carter and probably all the others, will not fit. If it is the slant back model, you can make the speaker fit. In the latter case, the one sold at Walmart does the job just fine.

Yeah what you said...darn dsylexia! Mine is the str. back arrrrg. Already have the speaker. I have mirror glaze plastic polish....same stuff I use on my motorcycle wind screen. Is that OK?

Double KRIKEY that NOS radio on EBAY did not hit the reserve and I think that bad boy was up to almost 500 long green!!!

(mumble mumble) I REALLY like my radio I REALLY like my radio.

Fred, what's the best way to get the tuning knobs to turn smoothly again and the push buttons to push? I think my radio is not so bad the more I work with it. Thanks.

TT,
if you remove the front cover you will have some access to the tuning mechanism. Be careful because the speaker is attached to the front and you need to unplug it first. If the plug breaks, let me know and I will point out how to fix it.

Get yourself a can of some type of rust removing penetrating spray with the straw. I like to use something called fluid film. You will find with careful application in strategic places, you can free things up. Then you can clean the excess up with Q-tips and some like methyl hydrate.

The push button rods tend to hang up where they come through the front guide. There is very little clearance there and a little rust can cause big problems.

The tuning knob sometimes becomes hard to turn because of congealed grease in the flexible shaft and worm gear. Also the main shaft has a preload bearing adjustment that can help.

It is always wise to try and determine what is binding. If it turns out to be the tuning cores binding in the sleeves, then this would be the subject of another discussion!

Thanks for your question.

Thanks friend. Haha looks like I've got some homework and an excuse to spend time at the bench with my radio It's a good thing.
PS - you lost me on the Methyl Hydrate. Common name?

TT,
that is wood alchohol, the same thing that you use to thin shellac.

Just a note, if you have the slant back radio, the front cover is actually one half of the case. That means that you must take the radio out of it's case to reach those points. The later model with the straight back has a separate front cover.