bgadow
02-24-2012, 02:23 PM
Since I decided to keep this set I figured it deserved its own thread. I'll start from the beginning. On occasion I'll send out a flyer to various thrift stores in the area letting them know I might be interested in any really ancient TV sets that might show up on their doorstep. A couple years ago I had sent one to my favorite Salvation Army store and, to my surprise, I got a call shortly thereafter. The manager said they had a set I might like and to stop by and ask for him. The TV was way in the back, stuffed in with a ton of old clothes and junk furniture that hadn't been sorted. It wasn't a pretty sight: the back was loose and hanging on the crt neck; the socket had been knocked off the pins, bending them and breaking the key in the middle. The chassis was loose and some parts were missing.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December013-1.jpg
I offered him $15; I could tell he wanted more but I really couldn't justify it. He would have been happier had I also taken another set he had on the sales floor (him and one other workers practically begged me to grab it), a late 70s Sears console in a bubbling particle board cabinet. I left it there.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December014-1.jpg
I didn't have a place to store it at home so I took it to the auto repair shop I own and plopped between a couple of the bays where it sat until recently. My initial once over showed that the crt was okay, even testing decent. I was very curious who built in. It's easy to find Sears source codes but I've never found anything for Wards. Some aren't hard at all (WGC=Wells-Gardner, ADM=Admiral, etc.) but GMW? Then, on the corner of the back cover, I spotted an EIA number. I was quickly able to cross it over to....Muntz! I knew that someone on here had a similar Muntz-branded combo from this era but I didn't know they had ever built things for Wards. As a side note, when Consumer Reports tested color TV sets in the late 60s they made mention that the reliability data for Wards could not be given as they had recently switched suppliers. I had guessed it had been from Wells-Gardner to Admiral but now I know. The build quality of this set is about what you'd expect for a “value” line: some particle board, a “clone” chassis, not a Zenith but not bottom-of-the-barrel junk, either. This was a “new” Muntz, with the “Madman” long gone.
I had made several attempts to sell this combo but, of course, I'm too far away from anybody who could give it a good home. Finally, in recent weeks, I found a place that I could put it at home without overcrowding the collection. With the set now in its new location, I started pulling it apart to see what it would really take to wake the old girl up. Now, with most sets, one thing killed it: a bad tube or capacitor, for instance, or in the case of the average Zenith, nothing ever killed it! But in the case of this Airline it had a whole host of problems, many of them bad enough to be fatal for most non-collectors. Here is what I found:
-The horiz efficiency and chroma osc coils had both been knocked off the chassis. The horiz was found rattling around in the cabinet but the chroma was MIA, along with a couple of the tubes.
-This is an instant-on set; the 'vacation' switch had broke and the wires were twisted together. It's a wonder the crt wasn't totally wiped out.
-The power cord that feeds the TV chassis had been chewed part-way through by rodents.
-The HV rectifier socket had broken and was dangling, wrapped in layers of electric tape. The HV rectifier cap had turned to crispy-critters and was also a mass of tape.
-During my brief power-up, one of the filter caps got hot after just a minute.
-Another filter cap had a “new” can wired in across it (not out of circuit), also wrapped in black tape and dangling, with the ground side wired using half of a zip cord, just twisted on, no solder!
-A terminal strip below the HV cage had burnt to a crisp; a wire wound resistor was dangling, connected to nothing. All the wires that had attached to that strip were so brittle that I couldn't strip them without breaking the wire.
-There was a loose wire at the tuner cluster (eventually traced to the AGC circuit).
-The UHF antenna connections at the tuner had fallen off.
-The fine tuning gear mechanism for the VHF tuner is totally shot. The dust shield for that tuner is MIA.
-The floor of the cabinet (particle board) had pulled loose from the supports (maybe somebody used it as a step?) and was warped downward.
-The radio works but with a hum, plus noisy controls.
-The turntable worked once given a minute to come up to speed, but the “tire” has a terrible thump.
-This TV had a long, hard life. The repairs look like they were done by an amateur; the majority of the tubes are replacements, and most of those are Realistics. (this will give me a chance to try out the lifetime guarantee!)
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December012-1.jpg
So, given all that, would you tackle it? Well, I have, and this set is on the way to living again!
So far, I have made temporary repairs to the power cord; put the horiz efficiency coil back in place along with the missing tubes, installed a terminal strip/wires below the HV cage, repaired the loose wires on the tuner, replaced all sections of the bad filter cap and rewired the “new” can that the previous guy had tacked in, replaced the rectifier tube cap and ordered a replacement chroma coil. At that point I decided to try powering it up again. Once everything was plugged in (controls left dangling on the floor) I plugged it in. The filaments came up okay so I switched it on. After a few seconds I heard the horizontal running: we have HV, we have raster! As I'm standing back admiring this
###P-O-P###. I saw it, a burst of spark near the audio board/degausser connections (left unhooked for now) but it didn't repeat and didn't seem to hurt anything. Maybe a piece of wire or solder that was shorting something? Every time that I've powered it up since, I've tried to prepare myself for a repeat!
Right now I'm working on two problems: the audio wasn't coming in right, as if I couldn't tune it in. I could just hear “video noise”. Part of the issue is that the fine tuning mechanism is shot so I had to turn the little gear on the channel strip manually. I did find that the demod tube on the sound board was bad. After replacement I was able to tune audio but not the greatest. I've doused the tuner with cleaner so I don't think that's the problem. I'm beginning to wonder if it's the digital converter box as the last 3 TV sets I've tinkered with had iffy audio. I'll try another source.
The other problem is that if I had adjust the horizontal hold far enough for the picture to lock upright, I lose the raster. (I guess I'm losing the HV) If I'm real careful I can get it to just lock in. I think this is a bad pot; it read a little iffy on my digital ohmmeter. My guess is that one of the problems this set had (maybe that batch of crispy critters below the HV cage) caused the pot to burn, and likely right where it was set for locking. I should have something in my junk box that I can sub.
That's where I stand right now, waiting until the chroma coil arrives. I should have a new HV rectifier socket in my junk box. For now I'm excited to say that, despite all those faults, this set is alive and kicking!
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December013-1.jpg
I offered him $15; I could tell he wanted more but I really couldn't justify it. He would have been happier had I also taken another set he had on the sales floor (him and one other workers practically begged me to grab it), a late 70s Sears console in a bubbling particle board cabinet. I left it there.
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December014-1.jpg
I didn't have a place to store it at home so I took it to the auto repair shop I own and plopped between a couple of the bays where it sat until recently. My initial once over showed that the crt was okay, even testing decent. I was very curious who built in. It's easy to find Sears source codes but I've never found anything for Wards. Some aren't hard at all (WGC=Wells-Gardner, ADM=Admiral, etc.) but GMW? Then, on the corner of the back cover, I spotted an EIA number. I was quickly able to cross it over to....Muntz! I knew that someone on here had a similar Muntz-branded combo from this era but I didn't know they had ever built things for Wards. As a side note, when Consumer Reports tested color TV sets in the late 60s they made mention that the reliability data for Wards could not be given as they had recently switched suppliers. I had guessed it had been from Wells-Gardner to Admiral but now I know. The build quality of this set is about what you'd expect for a “value” line: some particle board, a “clone” chassis, not a Zenith but not bottom-of-the-barrel junk, either. This was a “new” Muntz, with the “Madman” long gone.
I had made several attempts to sell this combo but, of course, I'm too far away from anybody who could give it a good home. Finally, in recent weeks, I found a place that I could put it at home without overcrowding the collection. With the set now in its new location, I started pulling it apart to see what it would really take to wake the old girl up. Now, with most sets, one thing killed it: a bad tube or capacitor, for instance, or in the case of the average Zenith, nothing ever killed it! But in the case of this Airline it had a whole host of problems, many of them bad enough to be fatal for most non-collectors. Here is what I found:
-The horiz efficiency and chroma osc coils had both been knocked off the chassis. The horiz was found rattling around in the cabinet but the chroma was MIA, along with a couple of the tubes.
-This is an instant-on set; the 'vacation' switch had broke and the wires were twisted together. It's a wonder the crt wasn't totally wiped out.
-The power cord that feeds the TV chassis had been chewed part-way through by rodents.
-The HV rectifier socket had broken and was dangling, wrapped in layers of electric tape. The HV rectifier cap had turned to crispy-critters and was also a mass of tape.
-During my brief power-up, one of the filter caps got hot after just a minute.
-Another filter cap had a “new” can wired in across it (not out of circuit), also wrapped in black tape and dangling, with the ground side wired using half of a zip cord, just twisted on, no solder!
-A terminal strip below the HV cage had burnt to a crisp; a wire wound resistor was dangling, connected to nothing. All the wires that had attached to that strip were so brittle that I couldn't strip them without breaking the wire.
-There was a loose wire at the tuner cluster (eventually traced to the AGC circuit).
-The UHF antenna connections at the tuner had fallen off.
-The fine tuning gear mechanism for the VHF tuner is totally shot. The dust shield for that tuner is MIA.
-The floor of the cabinet (particle board) had pulled loose from the supports (maybe somebody used it as a step?) and was warped downward.
-The radio works but with a hum, plus noisy controls.
-The turntable worked once given a minute to come up to speed, but the “tire” has a terrible thump.
-This TV had a long, hard life. The repairs look like they were done by an amateur; the majority of the tubes are replacements, and most of those are Realistics. (this will give me a chance to try out the lifetime guarantee!)
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x293/bgadow/December012-1.jpg
So, given all that, would you tackle it? Well, I have, and this set is on the way to living again!
So far, I have made temporary repairs to the power cord; put the horiz efficiency coil back in place along with the missing tubes, installed a terminal strip/wires below the HV cage, repaired the loose wires on the tuner, replaced all sections of the bad filter cap and rewired the “new” can that the previous guy had tacked in, replaced the rectifier tube cap and ordered a replacement chroma coil. At that point I decided to try powering it up again. Once everything was plugged in (controls left dangling on the floor) I plugged it in. The filaments came up okay so I switched it on. After a few seconds I heard the horizontal running: we have HV, we have raster! As I'm standing back admiring this
###P-O-P###. I saw it, a burst of spark near the audio board/degausser connections (left unhooked for now) but it didn't repeat and didn't seem to hurt anything. Maybe a piece of wire or solder that was shorting something? Every time that I've powered it up since, I've tried to prepare myself for a repeat!
Right now I'm working on two problems: the audio wasn't coming in right, as if I couldn't tune it in. I could just hear “video noise”. Part of the issue is that the fine tuning mechanism is shot so I had to turn the little gear on the channel strip manually. I did find that the demod tube on the sound board was bad. After replacement I was able to tune audio but not the greatest. I've doused the tuner with cleaner so I don't think that's the problem. I'm beginning to wonder if it's the digital converter box as the last 3 TV sets I've tinkered with had iffy audio. I'll try another source.
The other problem is that if I had adjust the horizontal hold far enough for the picture to lock upright, I lose the raster. (I guess I'm losing the HV) If I'm real careful I can get it to just lock in. I think this is a bad pot; it read a little iffy on my digital ohmmeter. My guess is that one of the problems this set had (maybe that batch of crispy critters below the HV cage) caused the pot to burn, and likely right where it was set for locking. I should have something in my junk box that I can sub.
That's where I stand right now, waiting until the chroma coil arrives. I should have a new HV rectifier socket in my junk box. For now I'm excited to say that, despite all those faults, this set is alive and kicking!