I finally got around to doing the chassis refurbishment and after doing some minor troubleshooting it works!

I have made some comments here and there about this set but now that I've made some progress with it I'd like to share it with all of you. This is a 57 model year Z3000E Howard Sams 343-18.

Aside from some repairs to the audio detector stage, a hacked-in/jumpered electrolytic capacitor on the B+ at the vertical output transformer, some tube changes, a "brightner", some dust so thick that it could have passed for dryer lint, the set was complete and sat for who knows how long.

What drew me to it is that it's equipped with the "Space Command(er) 200" clicker remote with 2 functions for mute and channel plus it works too! I don't think you could get any more low line in a TV just to have the luxury of a remote. The metal faux wood "blonde" sits on a base with cheap caster wheels. Next up is sanding down the cabinet and repainting it as you can see besides the water mark on top there's rust coming through too. As rusty as the cabinet is, the chassis is really clean. And I love these old Zeniths!

I did rejuvinate the 21ALP4A tube before Scotty shut down just in case it wouldn't make it as it tested pretty low but the meter did move just a little (a good sign at the CL listers house-helps with the bartering). Fortunately, there wasn't as much dust on the brightner as there was on everything else so I took that as a good sign too. The tube really didn't want to wake up much so I used my Beltron on it and restored it without any difficulty. Even though I like my Sencore for testing I'll use the Beltron for the "dirty work".

As for troubleshooting, the on-off swith is open (jumpered for now) and all I had was a raster/no sound. The audio circuits were sensitive to tapping around as well as when I probed the detector diode with my meter. And, if I turned my variac down it would strangely work with some audio and video?! This is telling me that the outputs were "wanting" to amplify something, but there's nothing coming to them at normal voltages! And the IF's were doing their job too. SOooo...time so see what's going on with the AGC! The grid of the 6BU8 was going negative but the plate only had about 17Vdc on it when it was needing around 55Vdc. Ah-Ha!! The 2.7M B+ load resistor (sams and Zenith call for a 3.3?) was dropping too much! But here's a strange one for you. During the course of me recapping and finding bad resistors this one would check good and it continued to check good. The only time it would read bad is right after I shut the set off and you could watch the resistance return back to spec. It was not heat or cold sensitive either! This is when I decided to clip it and jumper across it. Closest I have at the moment was a 2.2Meg and everything responded...Yippie!!

If any of you have heard Eddie Murphy's "Raw" and he's singing as a kid "I got some ice cream!..I got some ice cream!!...Well I like to change that up to 'I found the problem!...I found the problem!! :D

Now that it's in a state of working I have some things to ponder. As for the finish I really don't know of any way to replicate the (ugly) faux finish on metal. I am able to spray it in a booth and I wish to get the color as close to a "blend" as possible. I do have a color sample that's close to the light shades so I'll just get it tinted up brownish a little bit. This set is not anything rare or of high value so I don't mind something not original as long as it looks good.

I do want to clean up the bezal and at least spray/refinish it around the edges..

And, the picture it tilted. The yoke is spring mounted/secured in place to the front of the set so it's held up tight to the bell of the CRT. The inside diameter of the yoke around the neck is larger so you can adjust the width with the brass sleeve. Well, the yoke is stuck! I sure don't want to damage the yoke by grabbing it with my hands but is there something safe that maybe I can use as a penetrant that won't attack the yoke windings either?

nice looking set! try water with all the precautions! maybe a hair dryer.

Great progress on the Zenith :yes: I would try a hair dryer on the yoke clamping area, I know what you mean about not wanting to use too much force.. I'd be nervous as hell! Cheers

Back in the day, in the first shop i ever worked in, the supply house had sold the Boss a can of 'Frozen Yoke Remover'. It was an aerosol can that sat on the shelf unused for all the years i worked there. Wish i knew what was in the stuff now.
A bit leery of the hair dryer idea though, due to possibility of uneven heating of the glass. oc

pehaps the yoke will unstick if it is played for a while to warm up?

I even read somewhere about hooking the windings up to a varac and slowly turnin up the voltage until enough current would flow to make the yoke pretty warm to the touch. Not sure I would try that if I did not have a replacement yoke, just in case something went south.

That Super Royal model was one of the Higher end sets that year. It's just in a basic cabinet. I used to tell anyone buying a new set, The quality of the cabinet makes no difference in the performance of the set. At least that was true at the time that set was built. P.S. Eddie murphy "RAW". The family cookout segment, had to be one of his funniest.

...P.S. Eddie murphy "RAW". The family cookout segment, had to be one of his funniest.
Wuzzat anything like the dinner scene in 'The Nutty Professor' (part 1)? :music::D

One of the service clinic entries by Jack Darr recommended hooking up a 100w bulb in series with the yoke and AC line, and letting that cook for a while, to loosen stuck yokes. I'd guess you'd hook up the horizontal windings, (closest winding to the neck)
I'd keep a close watch on it while cooking..

Wuzzat anything like the dinner scene in 'The Nutty Professor' (part 1)? :music::D

Go to You-tube and key in Eddie Murphy. You'll see a selection of his routines and click on "The Family Cookout". It shows almost 2 million views.

Was that Eddie Murphy "RAW" played on HBO in the 80's? If so I think I have a period time shift of it that I bought at a sale because I have a thing for EARLY VHS recording tapes.

I can still hear him say "your wife ain't Polynesian she is a bleeping big foot". That whole thing was horribly funny.

Tom C.

I have the same set, but with a slightly different base (there's a plastic grillwork in front of the fabric). Due to time constraints I haven't been able to debug its odd scanning behavior (a Jackson Pollack-like collection of lines rather than a raster). My cabinet had the same issues but I just painted it with ivory spray paint. It really doesn't look that bad. It has a stamp on the back saying it was originally sold in Weatherford, TX, with a sales price written next to it of $319.95. Lots of bucks for 1957!

I have a similar Zenith from 1961, with both the cheap cabinet, and the remote. Mine's not a metal cabinet, but fake finish over some kind of thin press-board.

What's odd about this one is that it uses the sc300 chassis and remote, which is only set up to turn the tuner in one direction - but notice the controls on the set - both channel up and down. But both buttons are just wired together. At first I thought someone must have swapped in a switch from an sc400 set, but I picked up a few binders of zenith manuals recently, and they confirm some of these sc300 consoles actually came from the factory that way.

I never had a faux hawk or spiked my hair before, but I'd like to try it out. Do you think I'm too old for a faux hawk being 28 years old.

I can see using the Jack Darr approach as well as hooking up everything through a variac. As it is now, that set is not in an air conditioned environment so there's no problem with temperature unless it's melting to the CRT! :D

I need to solder in that resistor I've jumpered with my test leads so I can get that (vertically mounted) chassis out of the way and get those tension springs removed and operate.

I'm thinking about maybe using some soapy water through a squirt bottle and a little wiggle action with some popsicle sticks while having the CRT resting on it's face... :scratch2:

I ended up using the specified value of resistor in the AGC circuit. After jumping in the various values the 3.3M worked best overall. As I mentioned, this set had a 2.7M in place and it looked like it was there from day one. However, with that value if I adjusted the AGC pot it would drive into a good overload at one end but decresed to the other. With the 3.3 in place the overall range was more normal to me with nothing extreme. With using convertor boxes etc. and overloading and audio buzz issues being more common to deal with the last thing I'd want is too much gain. And yea, with a lot of text on the screen the audio will buzz some and I'll try to minimize some of that later. It does have good, clean audio output for normal listening as well as video.

Loosening the yoke worked out quite well. After getting the chassis out of the way and the tension springs I sat it down on it's face and the yoke stayed as stuck as ever. So, first step was to see if I could manipulate any movements. First, I carefully pried with my fingers the windings that were against the bell of the CRT and after awhile that proved to be working. I kept doing this until I was able to detect movement by some twisting action.

Eventually, it was coming loose with one set of windings and not the other. This yoke is on the brittle side so I made sure to grasp it at it's absolute front. Slowly but surely at it became looser and looser until it finally came undone! The key here was to not force it to move any more than it wanted to and it did take a while to break free but with positive results!

Once I was able to slide the yoke back you can see why it was stuck so well. I'm not sure if that was double stick tape used to adhere the yoke to the CRT but the tape stayed stuck to the windings which I left in place. I cleaned the CRT bell with some handy lacquer thinner to get off the residue and reassembled everything. The yoke cover is distorted from the centering tab/spring plate but it's not breaking apart so I left that alone too. As assembled, the yoke can be centered with little effort and stay in place. Now I can deal with the cosmedics!