Now I’m confused! RCA Victrola

There is nothing to it, rebuild it as you would with any other set. Keep everything tied to the same places ground wise. Polarized plug to the switch then to the 35Z5 and run the neutral to the common branch. The metal tubes and IF cans are all chassis grounded for common shielding. In a way it is an attempt to be safer with the chassis being straight to the line. I install a small fuse when possible as well. With all of that done, it really minimizes the chance of problems. As always, using test equipment with these should have the isolation transformer. Anything that gets tested on my bench gets the same treatment, it is a good practice to get into no matter what is being worked on. Good luck!

Thanks for the response. I usually try to eliminate the wiring of the old caps, and place the filter caps as close to where the wiring went, then ground to the chassis. So it looks like a terminal tie strip it is then. Definitely fuse it, and doubly so on the isolation transformer.

Thanks for the clarification.

@bhorn Yes relocating is beneficial, my point was keep it electrically the same circuit wise aside from the safety stuff you add. Let us know how it turns out!

Well, the parts came in! I had the 56×11 chassis almost recapped, was only lacking the electrolytics, when I noticed something off on the top side. It seems someone replaced the original IF cans with aftermarket replacements 😕. I’ll finish it up, but I’m not holding any hope of being able to align the IF, unless I can find the right transformers for it. Oddly enough, I had the same thing happen with a BIG 16 tube Philco 48-1276. I managed to find another chassis for that one, but just lost interest in it. Someday… On a positive note, the little Emerson 547A I was waiting on a tube for, came to life after replacing the tube, and finding a wiring fault I caused. At first, no audio at all. I checked the speaker, it tested fine. The output trans seemed to have incredibly low resistance, so I figured that was it, but just didn’t know how to test it for sure. So I sat back, and thought WWMCD (What Would Mr. Carlson Do?) 😁 I grabbed my old Eico 377, and fed a signal in the tube side, and I had output to the speaker! Then, I noticed a cap that didn’t exactly go to ground, as it was supposed to. It picked up a few stations, but hopefully, I can do my first ever radio alignment on it this weekend. I’m really looking forward to giving it a try!

Good to hear! What kind of signal generator are you going to use? I originally bought a tube heathkit generator, but by the time I got a radio done for alignment I bought an HP 8657A which is much more accurate. Then I got really fancy when I got the HP 3585A spectrum analyzer, so I never actually used the heathkit.

I restored an Eico 324, and an Eico 315. I also have a Tek CDC250 frequency counter to keep an eye on the accuracy. Then I’ll have my Eico 249 VTVM across the output to take the peak measurements.

Id like to have some of that good old HP gear, but I kinda want to cut my teeth on the old stuff, and work through all the quirks the old gear has.

I’ll have to let both signal generators run for a while, to see which one is more stable, and use that one.