The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench Antenna

The control can be use from several different GM cars, late 40's early 50's Buick can work ,some OLDS and 42-48 six tube Chevy pasenger car , first check if the shaft is long enought, the shafts are made of brass and can have the side cut flat ,I've done this several times , mostly I have problems with the on/off switch ,it can be replaced with another one ,I work on about 100 of these radios a year.

And so Bill, since your into servicing all those radios would you happen to have a spare
control or ON/OFF section around the shop that you would be willing to part with???? Of
course the ON/OFF section is the one that I'm having the problem with. I've tried finding
just that section and again, haven't had any luck there. I’ve collected a pretty good
inventory of old pots and switches:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/140724149/large but nothing that will work
with the AD control.

As you well know Bill, the other three sections have to be un-tabbed to get to the
ON/OFF section, which allows you to do a real good cleaning of the wiper and resistance
surface. I’m not sure how the tabs are gonna take being bent a third time so I’d sure like
to have another whole control on the bench when I service it.

The tone control phenolic was broken into four pieces and I re-fit and re-glued them with
a backing across the seam. That section is still working just peachy, in fact the whole
control rebuild has been working fine for the past six years till the ON/OFF switch started
giving me trouble this fall:
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/switch_rebuild.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Bill,
that list you mentioned I assume only pertains to the on/off internals? I know there is a model of Chev radio around 1950 or 51 that does have the tone switch. I have seen some of these radios broken there just like Denny's probably because somebody tried to ram it into the dash.

That happens whan they try to set the radio on the bench and if falls over toward the front. It's top heavy and the controls are the only thing that contacts if you tilt it forward.
it shoves the shaft back into the stack an breaks the phenolic wafer.
DG

Now Denny, how would you know that! ha ha

Fred

Most of the radio with broken controls I get are from being damage in shipping or poor storage conditions ,these radios are around 60 years old and have quite a history to tell, I even had one show up with bullet hole!,I got one AD radio came in from JIM CARTER's This week , I should be able to come up with a control for you give me a week, do you want a double on/off switch ?

Well you guessed it Fred, mine came to me like that. During the autopsy I figured that
would have been the best case scenario for the damage to the one that I bought from
Texas.

Actually the one I bought was packed pretty good so it must have happened when
someone had it sitting on the bench rather than in transit.

Not sure what you mean Bill, "double on/off switch"? This picture describes what the
switch looks like better that I could do with the written word.
http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/113183224

The control is a 3 section control and the inner section is just simply an ON/OFF toggle
switch which is shown in the pictures disassembled. I had to make a new post on the lathe
for the rocker because the rivet head is wiped out when you disassemble the switch to
service the contacts.
I’d sure appreciate it if you could come up with a switch section or preferable the whole
control assembly.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,
I think I can answer your question. When the radios first came out, they had a DPDT switch on the control, one for the power and one for the dial light. The first replacement switches were still DPDT. Then eventually the replacement switches only had one pole or SPDT and you would wire it to turn off the power and dial light at the same time. With this arrangement the dial light couldn't be wired through the headlight dimmer.

Ahhhh, I see. I think that would be DPST switch Fred. yep that's what these are. I rebuilt two of these radios, when I did mine I
also did one for my buddy. One lead is a power lead and the other goes to the dash light on the light switch.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny,
I have noticed that sometimes only one pole fails. A quick fix is to use the surviving switch to handle both. the problem is that in the failure of the first one, enough heat and mechanical damage takes place such that the whole switch becomes unstable and it fails just after the whole thing is back together!

Fred

A shorted buffer usually is what burns up the switch. I've found that the light switch will some times work good for the radio AFTER is been over hauled,then I've wired it so the dial light comes on and off with the trucks light switch. I've also used the controls with the reostat tone control ,takes a little bit of redesiding the tone but will work good

The toggle isn't flipping over Fred, if only one of the contacts was at fault then either the
radio or the light would be making. Neither does. for the last year or so I had to snap it on
and off several times to get it to flip over, now it's just not making at all.
As I said, I've already "carefully" taken it apart once and usually the tabs won't take being
bent more than a couple of times before they break off, then your sunk.
The silicon bronze contact springs are very fragile in these and they tend to loose their
tension very easy. The contacts weren’t burn at all but they do oxidize which is another
problem with them.

New orange drop buffer when I rebuilt the radios Bill, just a few hours time on it. I doubt
if it had more that 15 or 20 hours on it because I get tired real quick of AM talk radio. I've
got a Sony unit that clips under the dash, which gives me AM/FM/CD/USB capability for
easy listening. I power that and my 12v tach with a voltage booster cube. Might have
mislead you guys on the tone control, it is a three position switch which simply switches
the caps into or out of the circuit, not a resistance. What I really meant was that I had
access to the volume pot element when I disassembled stack.
Oh yeah, the light! The purpose of the double pole-single throw switches are that the dial
light is powered by the dash light dimmer section of the head light switch but controlled
by the radio ON/OFF switch. The second set of contacts feeds the power to the radio
itself.

Might be a couple of weeks before I can get to the radio bench, I literally mean get to the
radio bench. It’s collected a whole summers worth of crap that needs to be cleared off.
Winter or when I become snow bound, is the only time I work on the radios, to busy
when the sun shines.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Bill,
I have often thought of using a normal control for the tone but I think it would be a problem selling the radio after because it wouldn't be as "original".

Fred

If you're talking about a pot Fred, I don't see how you could intagrate one of those into the control for an AD radio since
the whole thing is a stack serving three functions.

DG

Denny,
all I would have to do is look up a GM radio of similar vintage and modify the circuit as necessary using the other schematic as a reference. The AD radio is really the exception. I only know of one other Chev radio that used that design.

I've got a Pontiac radio of similar vintage on the shelf and it uses a tone
control switch also, only difference is it's a four
position switch instead of a three like the AD radio is.

DG