Today's front page of the university newspaper depicted a fellow strumming a banjo on the front porch of his lodgings. My eyes immediately went to the Zenith color TV sitting on the front lawn.

The house was just up the street from where I work. I knocked on the door. A girl answered and a guy upstairs said "does someone want the set? Tell 'em it doesn't work!" The girl said she was sick of it and just take it.

It is a 24MC32 and here is the newspaper clipping and my cell phone pictures of the set after I retrieved it. All the tubes are in place, the cabinet is faded but sound apart fro a broken leg and the only other thing I see broken is a minor convergence coil plastic breakage on the convergence panel. The front panel and a couple of knobs are missing. It appears otherwise quite clean inside and restorable.

I shall shortly test the CRT.

Terry

Miracle it wasn't necked.

Cool acquisition story, congrats on the new set. Hope you can get it working in short order.

Matt

sweet critter! Those can give a great picture!
And it has the complimentary melted focus wand.
Change the bumblebees, check the electrolytics and get the variac!

Good save! We should all be as on-it as you when these opportunities arise.

Were they playin' "Dueling Banjos ?" Gawd, that movie STILL gives me The Creeps, 40 years on...It was filmed right below Chattanooga, where I went to boarding school, & the locals were NOT Best Pleased w/their depiction, either...

Kinda like us around here when Fargo came out, ya know.

I do not know how long the set was on the lawn. It must have gone thru a rain storm or two. It is testimony to Zenith chassis plating as there is virtually no rust. And the cabinet survived without delaminating.

I have seen a number of sets like which always seem to get necked. This set is a real survivor.

I removed the chassis to clean and examine. And the tube was tested as depicted. The tube took about half an hour to wake up and the three guns are giving good emission.

Kinda like us around here when Fargo came out, ya know.

Was living in Fargo around that time - loved the people telling me that they didn't sound like that at all. :D

A great way to find a roundie! You really do have to have your eyes open all the time...looks like a colorful character, sitting next to that colorful TV. No surprise that this set survived, 60s Zeniths almost always do, somehow.

I think I have that same Zenith. Mine has a dead crt and toasted pwr tranny. If nothing else, you at least have a good CRT.

Last weekend I spliced in the part of the missing leg with a piece of poplar. I do not know the original wood but the poplar should stain to match.

I am a sucker for these down and out sets. But this roundie deserved to be saved. The chassis fortunately survived in good state.

Excellent work! I agree, sets this downtrodden absolutely deserve to return to the land of the living. A true diamond in the rough!

Looks a lot like one of the Zenith sets I acquired in January. Good score! I like the danish modern cabinet.

I have been doing a bit of work on this set, as time permits, over the last month or so. I stripped the cabinet, restained it in Chesnut Brown and relaquered it with three coats of aerosol laquer.

It was a smoker set so there was tons of gunk to clean off from the interior. I removed the HV cage, removed the HO Transformer and cleaned it fully out. It is now pretty spotless.

I replaced a few cracked coils, the power connector and the curcuit breaker. I fashioned a couple of knobs to replace those missing. Still need the control door.

Fired it up on the weekend and did some trouble shooting. All appears to be in order EXCEPT for the HO Transformer. It appears to breakdown in operation so there is no HV. I called Moyers and await their reply.

can you describe the failure mode of the fly a bit more?

The fly is the last thing I would suspect in a zenith. Make sure you pull the cap off the hv reg tube first and verify its not over regulation or somthing like that. Looking at the schematic I see it has that complex shunt regulator with a bunch of high value resistors. Should be a fly282 and I bet he has it.

Thanks for the response. Certainly, I shall share my current woe.

Fired up the set and checked basic voltages which appeared okay. I noticed the HO Tube began to red plate after a few minutes and there was no HV. Checked the H Oscillator and it was spot on frequency and amplitude to the HO Tube was correct and the HO Tube bias was about -60volts.

I loosely coupled the scope to the HO Tube plate and saw a good spike. Removing the HV rectifier cap, I could draw only a small arc. I tried disconnecting the various things that might load the transformer such as the convergence assembly, the yoke horizontal coil and the HV would not rise.

I measured the DC voltages on the plate and cathode of the damper and they were the same and there is no boost B plus. Incidently, I removed the regulator cap to ensure it wasn't loading down the HV.

I finally did some resistance measurements and see there is about a 500k ohm resistance from the HV windings to ground. There should be no leakage from this winding to ground unless there has been a breakdown through the transformer frame itself.

Funny as I tried ringing the coil earlier and it seemed okay. It looks like it will breakdown when powered up.

All thoughts are welcome but it looks like the HO Transformer to me.

Its always easy to measure the screen, if its high the tube is overloaded, if its low its lack of drive.

I would agree the ring test can be pointless unless the primary is shorted. I took apart several rca ones to repair and rewax them, they all had the same failure, the hv winding was arcing from the top of the doughnut to the bottom with a big carbon trace from one end to the other.

Zeniths seem to fail less because they are potted in that hard epoxy.

From what you are saying I would try changing it.

Last weekend I spliced in the part of the missing leg with a piece of poplar. I do not know the original wood but the poplar should stain to match.

I am a sucker for these down and out sets. But this roundie deserved to be saved. The chassis fortunately survived in good state.


That's quite an impressive repair to that leg-
Great job!

Magnavox300

WOW, what a nice job and woodworking for the replaced spliced leg!!

oh good luck on this one .. she is a true survivor and I am sure she will payback all the loving care... and I am sure you will sort that HO.

I unfortunately struck out with Moyers. They were very helpful and did provide me the list of part numbers for replacements: Thordarson FLY-282, Stancor HO-629c and Triad d329. Does anyone know of an alternative source of supply?

On the other hand, I am not averse to ripping the transformer apart to examine what the trouble is. Has anyone ant experience removing the expoxy covering on these things?

The search continues ...

Thanks for the complement on the leg. My furniture repair knowledge was honed by a British book I bought thirty years ago written by Charles Haywood. He was an old time restorer and and the splice technique came almost verbatim from his book.

That cabinet is looking might fine!! :yes:

..It was filmed right below Chattanooga,.

Wonder if there are still any good hillbilly areas? Ozarks have changed ,
Kentucky now dotted with WalMarts but still some old farms.

Hope you can find a flyback. It is rare for a Zenith to have one go out, but....when I was a kid, my Uncle got a Zenith in on trade. Can't remember what chassis number, but it was the first Zenith rectangular set, so it was a 65 or 66 model. At the time the set was 14 years old. Altho the set came from a spotless home, and saw little use, (the chassis didn't have a speck of dust on it) the flyback was bad. He was going to junk it out, but the cabinet was so beautiful, and with it being a mint space command set, I took it. I had him put in a flyback, and discovered that the picture tube was bad. I had him put in a Zenith Chromacolor tube, and my parents got years of use out of it, before it finally died. Anyway... altho rare (my Uncle was even surprised the flyback was bad) it does happen, and I hope you can find a replacement for yours.

Only saw two Zenith Flybacks fail, one in a smokers-tar encrusted 1969 23" chassis 16Z8C50 and my Aunt's bedroom set (no doubt left on all night) a 1970 14A9C29?.

Wonder if there are still any good hillbilly areas? Ozarks have changed ,
Kentucky now dotted with WalMarts but still some old farms.

Try Madison County in Western North Carolina. Plenty to choose from...

It's also an incredibly beautiful area out there. I'd be living there if I could find a place I could afford.

That Zenith will be a good performer. I wish you all the best luck with it.:yes:

Not that I have one, but is the OEM part number S-71144 or S-65465? They both interchange to the replacement flys.
I bring this up because maybe someone has a pull that's sitting in a junkbox somewhere....

Check Talon Electronics too...http://www.talonix.com/shop/

Only saw two Zenith Flybacks fail, one in a smokers-tar encrusted 1969 23" chassis 16Z8C50 and my Aunt's bedroom set (no doubt left on all night) a 1970 14A9C29?.

Some of the Zeniths, I had problems with, where the terminal board would soak up moisture and affect the focusing on high humidity days. The transformer had to be replaced, as silicone or corona dope wouldn't help. :thumbsdn:

Getting back to the Banjo picker for a moment,
He seems like a true Country Boy, not like one who
went to school in the Big City (Knoxville).

i just rescued the same model zenith.has a replacement crt that is excellent,works with a nasty tuner and a sync issue.vertical is all there but shakes and wont lock in.came from a used car dealers office here in columbus.he used it 15 years until the digital conversion.was going to the recycler if someone didnt take it.cabinet needs some help but the set is all there and again,the crt is excellent.

Getting back to the Banjo picker for a moment,
He seems like a true Country Boy, not like one who
went to school in the Big City (Knoxville).

The guy who was the banjo picker is a guy named Billy Reddin. He got well off the money he earned in "Deliverence", & found a whole bunch of new friends who helped him spend it. He'd worked at a service station, & about a year later, he was back at the service station. He's been in a few movies other than Deliverence. I DON'T think he ever attended UT, he was more Georgia Tech material...Prolly woulda been Summa Cum Laude there...

well now that is ashame about that flyback because on ebay about a month ago there was a lot of 10 flybacks that went for i think 30.00 and there was a fly629c that said for zeniths and i was going to bid on it but didnt and here he would have had the right fly for the set because i would not have used that one. ok sorry it was not the ho-629c but rather a thordarson fly 629c but it did say zenith and thordarson and stancor are different and the numbers, this is why i revised this, sorry.

upon further inspection of this zenith,a crt label in red and white,looking like rca but says zenith.another sticker reads hi-lite.this is a low level set with a plain cabinet.looks like a rebadged rca crt.it is excellent and between the jumps and shakes,the picture is sharp and the color saturation is beautiful.i will pull the chassis and look at caps.cabinet might have to be completely overhauled.then again,flyback is good and crt is excellent.that can get 2 more roundies back in service for someone else

,... He was more georgia tech material......

*lol*

I was told that the metal cabinet versions of these sets are rare. Supposedly the metal cabinet sets were not saved for the furniture factor that saved a lot of sets long after their useful service. I got one and thought that it was junky because it had the metal cabinet, but frankly it's one less worry as far as refinishing and supposedly more valuable.

Last weekend I spliced in the part of the missing leg with a piece of poplar. I do not know the original wood but the poplar should stain to match.

I am a sucker for these down and out sets. But this roundie deserved to be saved. The chassis fortunately survived in good state.

thats amazing that chassie looks in better shape laying outside ,than my chassie did sitting inside a barn ,i had wire brush dirt and rust and who knows what off mine.

thats amazing that chassie looks in better shape laying outside ,than my chassie did sitting inside a barn ,i had wire brush dirt and rust and who knows what off mine.

The set had sat outside two weeks I was told. In that time there was one minor rain shower. Testimony to the good plating used on the chassis was that it escaped relatively unscathed.

I am still looking for the flyback transformer. No luck with Talon or Moyers...

What a terrific story and what a nice job you did with this set!! You get first prize for this restoration and to think how close it came to meeting up with a dempster!

A month ago, I returned to our old house in Carbondale to clear out some left behind items. Amongst the stuff brought back was my old Zenith. Recall I found this set by way of an article on the front page of the Southern Illinois University student newspaper, the "Egyptian". A photo depicted but made no reference to the set on a front lawn, but to a banjo player sitting on the porch. (See beginning of the thread).

To make the story short, after cleaning up the set, we moved house. I patiently waited more than two years to continue the restoration.

I thought the flyback was fried. Kevin helped find me a replacement which I was just about to install. However I had another look with the set switched on and found only the HV rectifier bad. The tube had an invisible crack and was down to air. Interestingly it made a frying sound and loaded down the sweep section enough to cause the Horizontal Output tube plate to glow red after a few minutes. A new 3AT2 and I got good sweep and a good raster. HV measured and stayed at 25kV and so I am all set! Thanks anyway, Kevin.

The photo below is the set tuned to MeTV (Rockford Files) this afternoon with only a most cursory purity set up and convergence. Shortly after the set lost color lock. I decided to do the color APC and quadrature injection adjustment when the quad injection coil crumbled in the can!

I took the transformer apart and the coil former was in bits. So my call out Videokarmaland is do any of you have a spare injection coil/transformer? (It is Zenith part S-66788 and it looks like it was used in most if not all early Zenith color sets from 1962 to 1967. Note it is mounted in a standard aluminum can and has 8 terminals).

Failing finding a transformer, a two inch length of coil former which takes threaded ferrite slugs would do. I am prepared to rewind the transformer but even the formers are hard to find these days.

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Terry

Is that coil form plastic/nylon like the 'effficiency' coil and blue convergence coils?

...

The set had sat outside two weeks I was told. In that time there was one minor rain shower. Testimony to the good plating used on the chassis was that it escaped relatively unscathed.



The great thing about having one of these metal cabinet sets is you can take it to the car wash and pressure wash it with a little de-greaser and make it like new!

... You could probably reuse another coil form after you remove the windings. If you don't have a junk pile, I'm sure someone here can find a spare coil with a long enough form. I will be interested to see if your rewind is successful, or if the characteristics of the coil are too critical to replicate by hand.

Andy and Old Coot: The original coil former looked to be a brown phenolic tube which would take those little powdered ferrite threaded slugs with the hexagonal holes. You know the ones that after some years jam and split when you try to free them.

I carefully counted the turns as I unwound the coils from the crumbled mess. The quad injection transformer is reasonably complicated but as it is operates at roughly 3.5 MHz, the number of turns are relatively few. I have had success rewinding IF transformers in the past so this should provide a medium challenge if I can only find the length of coil former. If anyone has one, no matter what coil it may already have on it and if it is at least 2 1/4" long, I'd be most grateful if you can spare it.

Incidentally, I received a reply from Moyers: they said they could not find the part. I suppose it is now 50 years but it was used in pretty well all the Zenith sets of the period.

I'll check my parts stash.

One thing to be aware of with coils like this is that they used wax coatings on everything electronic imaginable over the years. If any of that coating was in or managed to get in to the slug/form then it will cement the slug in place unless heated or dissolved by chemicals that may not be safe for the coil... So when a slug sticks, don't force it, HEAT it.

I'll check my parts stash.

Thanks.

... So when a slug sticks, don't force it, HEAT it.

Good advice. I have broken my share of slugs until I learned to heat them. A heat gun has proved useful for this.

This is so odd as I was recently told exactly the opposite with the same problem, but with one of the larger coils wound on a plastic spool as found on a convergence board. Mine is a horizontal efficiency coil in my 64 Zenith. His idea is that the heat will expand the plastic and only further bind the slug. He said to use a drill bit 1/16" smaller than the bore and drill out the slug.

I guess either approach could work if done with great care as either way these things can and will turn to powder in your hands. Mine being an N.O.S. Thordarson replacement has fresh plastic which I don't want to melt of course. I was thinking more of a hair dryer than a heat gun. I was thinking a little heat and a grab with an EZ out might do the trick. The heat only being there to liquify whatever wax or resin that has ran through the slug tap.

One thing I do know is I definitely don't want to attempt finding another coil. Talk about something nobody has N.O.S. and so far no fellow collectors want to give up. Guess I can't blame them, but I never saw a post with issues there until I had mine go bad.

I can appreciate not heating a plastic coil former as it will melt, deform and bind the slug. The coil former I was referring to is the brown phenolic type.

In this Zenith, the convergence coils were of the plastic variety and each had gone brittle and deformed. I called Moyers and they provided me the first two replacements wound on a phenolic core. The third (on the far right) I rewound on a Zenith plastic coil former.

Thanks.



Good advice. I have broken my share of slugs until I learned to heat them. A heat gun has proved useful for this.

I don't have any forms that long that are also threaded inside...Unless they are in something not scrapped yet. In which case it's not worth the effort to search. Sorry.

I don't have any forms that long that are also threaded inside...Unless they are in something not scrapped yet. In which case it's not worth the effort to search. Sorry.

The problem was finding a coiler form long enough.

I found a few coils I bought from Gateway in St. Louis some years ago. They were slightly too short. So I spliced the tubes together with a reinforcement. Fortunately the splice won't interfere with the windings.

I have shut down for the Thanksgiving weekend. Thanks for looking. I will rewind the transformer early next week and see how it performs.

This might be an ideal application of the 'aspirin trick'. A super handy technique for stripping fine wire without damaging it. Scroll down to posts# 26 - 28.
http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=257295&page=2

The photo below is the set tuned to MeTV (Rockford Files) this afternoon with only a most cursory purity set up and convergence. Shortly after the set lost color lock. I decided to do the color APC and quadrature injection adjustment when the quad injection coil crumbled in the can!

I took the transformer apart and the coil former was in bits. So my call out Videokarmaland is do any of you have a spare injection coil/transformer? (It is Zenith part S-66788 and it looks like it was used in most if not all early Zenith color sets from 1962 to 1967. Note it is mounted in a standard aluminum can and has 8 terminals).

Failing finding a transformer, a two inch length of coil former which takes threaded ferrite slugs would do. I am prepared to rewind the transformer but even the formers are hard to find these days.

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Terry

Recheck your part number - I have a NOS S-66788 (Zenith 20S-66788, helps to know the prefixes for Zenith lettered parts!) My S-66788 is a sound quad coil, and looks nothing like yours pictured.

Your transformer may be an S- numbered transformer, or a 95-XXXX number.

Recheck your part number - I have a NOS S-66788 (Zenith 20S-66788, helps to know the prefixes for Zenith lettered parts!) My S-66788 is a sound quad coil, and looks nothing like yours pictured.

Your transformer may be an S- numbered transformer, or a 95-XXXX number.

Thanks! There is a 95- XXXX number on the can. I tried to find the correct number from the parts list.

That makes sense. I'll reference the 95-XXXX number in future. I appreciate your input.

Sometimes, if a core is stuck and it looks like it'll break before shifting but the coil is otherwise good--try this--

Take another slug and screw this down/or upwards into the former--If a setting is found that then works--then great!

IF however--as always seems to be, the adjustment needs to go The Other way, remove the test-slug you tried and then use a Brass screw of same/similar thread, cut down to 'slug' size, with a slot cut into one end.
--I think Aluminium works as well for this--Could roll up some ally foil and try it...

The Brass slug will reduce the inductance as its screwed in up to the stuck slug and could well be enough to get that (whatever) inductance within tolerance for the circuit to operate normally--After all, Thats all we really need to do....
--All depends on your coil-former not being completely out of shape or too brittle, although some epoxy could help strengthen it up....

Just one of those mad things a very old engineer told me years ago, and Ive used it once on an old tube radio IF transformer....

I finally got around to rewinding the quadrature injection transformer (T20) on the Zenith. Recall it suffered from heat and crumbled when I attempted to adjust it.

I found an appropriate coil form from an old unused RCA AM/FM radio IF transformer. I had to make two attempts at rewinding because of a misassumption the first time I tried which resulted in initial failure. I could only achieve proper quadrature demodulation with the demodulation axis rotated 90 degrees! I could get a decent picture with relatively good color if I swapped the B-Y for R-Y, G-Y for B-Y and R-Y for G-Y and touch up the quadrature injection. The only difference from the original Zenith transformer and mine was the input coupling winding (pins 2 and 7 on the transformer). I simply bunch wound the winding.

The original winding was a "honeycomb" mesh winding. I reckoned there was too much distributed capacity in my bunch winding. The bunch winding I believe was bringing the primary winding towards resonance: this would add the 90 degrees shift. Fortunately the AM winding from the IF transformer I dissected had two similar honeycomb windings. I used one to determine the total number of turns at 110 per winding and the second I removed the difference to provide the 37 turns I required. I assembled the transformer so that it appeared almost identical from the original.

With my second transformer reinstalled, I was able to get the correct quadrature alignment and demodulation phase with no problem.

The color lock was poor after completing the color oscillator adjustment. Probing with the scope, The burst amplitude low due to the a bad 6JC6 burst amplifier. I found the color oscillator would intermittently lock in phase 180 degrees out! I could find nothing amiss and decided to change the 6KT8 oscillator/reactance control tube for the heck of it. Color lock was now excellent. (I decided to replace all the 6KT8s in the set because I do not trust the critters).

I really like the picture on this set: it is crisper than my RCA's and I really like the Zenith picture. I did not bother with Video IF/ Sound IF or chroma channel alignment because the picture and sound are good. The picture indeed looks better than the photos. The set is using the original Zenith CRT.

The CRT looks to have had a hard life but appears to have a lot of life remaining. Sure glad it wasn't necked!

looks great, excellent convergence as well. That set sure has come a long way, great work!!

PLEASE take your right hand, reach behind your left shoulder, and pat yourself on the back! Well done - another Zenith beauty!

Congratulations on the engineering and persistance!

Cheers,

That picture really looks wonderful. :thmbsp:

Nice work!

Very very nice job there.