1956 Sears 24" Suburbanite Combo
 

Here's my latest project. It is a Sears 24" Suburbanite TV-Radio-Phonograph. As shown in the 1956 Sears Christmas catalog. Look in the lower left hand corner of page 406. At the time it cost $314.95!

http://www.wishbookweb.com/FB/1956_S...as_Book/#408/z

I got the unit last May near Cleveland Ohio and brought it back to Texas. The family I got it from was very nice and I'm sure they will be monitoring this restoration closely.

Let's get to a lot of pictures. A lot are self explanatory. The unit was kept in nice shape all these years and was very clean except for the usual but light dust inside. A quick trip to the car wash took care of that dust.

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And now the insides. The TV chassis number is 528.51020 and the radio chassis number is 528.48600. BTW, I'm looking for some service data for that radio chassis.

The TV is a 16 tube chassis that uses a transformer only for the tube heaters. Sams 368-14 and Riders Volume 21 page 524 has the service data for the TV. I haven't gotten to removing the record player yet and that will be after the TV and radio are done.

The TV uses a 24YP4 picture tube which tested good after a little while burning in.

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After the car wash!

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Even the HV cage was pretty clean!

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I've never have seen this type of tube shield before. They remind me of clam shells.

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And now some pictures of the radio chassis. Help me out with some service data for this radio. Thanks.

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After a recap and selenium rectum-fryer-ectamy she ought ta fire right up :thmbsp:

Yeah, I think you're right.

Very nice!

It's a AM only radio, but it has a Push-Pull output stage. Should sound pretty good!

I have a Sears/Silvertone AM Only Radio and Stereo Record Player Console that uses the same exact radio chassis your combo unit uses, I might have the service info for you.

That would be terrific!

Thank you.

Today I started on the chassis. I re-stuffed the 3 E-Caps using Nichicon 10,000 hour 105 degree caps. I also replaced the 2 selenium rectifiers with some 1N5408 diodes.

I added 2 fuse holders and a chassis mounted 25W resistor to sub out the Fusistor and mounted 2 other chassis mount resistors. More on those later.

Here is a before picture followed by my work today.

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You gave me idea and I looked in the 1956 Christmas catalog listed in the OP. Sure enough there was an AM radio with a 4 speed record player. It is listed as a 7041K.

Riders didn't list that model number. Bummer.

EDIT: catalog number 7053 and 7054 look promising too.

One question: what exactly did you do, at the car wash?

Cleaned off the chassis and the tuner. Both top and bottom.

I use the "Presoak" which gives a mild pressured spray, and then to rinse off the chassis I use the "Spot Free" rinse, which again is a mild pressure spray.

Then I let it sit in the hot Texas sun for a few hours to dry with a turn over about midway.

I started off today's work by finishing wiring the power input and fusing of the parts that installed yesterday.
Then I went to work by replacing all 11 resistors on the IF board. 5 of them were clearly out of tolerance. Of the remaining 6, 3 were at the high end of their tolerance.

I then moved onto some terminal strips and replaced the resistors and film caps as needed. I replaced 1 E-Cap in the audio section V8.

I then did V8 and V9 and a few other resistors near them.

Included are some before and after pictures.

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Today I continued to recap the chassis. This TV has a couplate for the Vertical Integrator. I remembered I made one up that seemed similar on another project. I checked my docs and sure enough it was identical. When I made the first one up, I made 2 boards. I dug around and found the second board. I then proceeded to make up a new V. I.

All that's left to do is the Horizontal section. That should be done tomorrow.

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Regarding the tube shields, it was a U/L requirement for captive tube shields in a hot chassis set. It actually was intended for a metal cabinet set, where the shields could be left off and fall between the chassis and cabinet.
They just built the chassis, regardless of the cabinet material. :scratch2:

That makes sense! Thanks.

There is 1 "Special Part" that is used in the H. Osc. section. It is a .01uf 20% 600VDC tubular cap. Both Riders and Sams list this 1 cap as a "Special Part".

It goes across a couple of terminals of the Synchro-Guide Transformer. It is labeled C46 in the Riders schematic and C37 in the Tech-Master schematic. I remembered that my Tech-Master TV kit uses one of these and I looked up what it used. It was just a tubular film capacitor.

Can I replace this 63 year old part with a modern day film cap?

Here is a picture of it on the transformer along with Riders schematic and the schematic of the Tech-Master TV last.

Thanks.

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I'm pretty sure a modern film cap works just fine in that position. I once made the mistake of putting a ceramic disc capacitor in that place in a 8TS30 and the horizontal frequency drifted all over the place but stayed steady with a mylar cap installed there instead. I think it was a better quality part than the usual wax coated paper capacitor that made it a "special part".

Erich,
Thanks for the quick reply. I went ahead and use a modern day film cap. But just in case I kept the old cap.

See you Saturday?

Well that pretty much wraps up the main chassis. I still have to clean the pots and tube sockets.

Then on to the tuner and control panel pots.

Looks like Saturday will be the big day with the first power up!

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Wow, that's a really nice combo, I wish I would run into one myself.
The work you are doing looks top notch. I like how you made the couplate for the vertical integrator.

Thank you.

Today I cleaned up the tuner switches and lubed the shaft. I cleaned and lubed the controls and wired them up.

The yoke cover will need to be redone. Not the complete cover but just the sides. I'll come up with a good method.

I powered it up and it worked right off the bat. I had to adjust the controls but it is working pretty good. Sound is very good too. I used my test CRT.

HV is good at 11.5Kv. I think I'll try another 1B3GT tube.

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That's awesome!

FYI Bob Andersen has a couple of videos showing how to rebuild yoke covers out of PVC. He's probably got pictures on here someplace too.

If you want a really nice combo, I have a high-end Magnavox 24" B&W combo with a good CRT and the big amplifier. I picked it up for the amp, but it's too nice to scrap.
It depends where you live! It's located in S/E WI. :scratch2:

When I did a lot of servicing, I used to carry .01/600V Sprague Orange Drops in the caddie For the RCA B/W sets. They worked just fine. :thmbsp:

B.C, Canada. If I was closer I'd love to have one.

Wow, the picture sure looks nice, you are sure making quick work on the chassis.

Chris, I want to revisit post #14. You seriously gave that a wash, I understand that it wasn't a pressure wash. But how can getting IF cans wet or the innards of transformers wet not do some type of permanent damage to those components?Spats Bear has a YouTube video of a Zenith Chromacolor chassis that he puts through a kitchen dishwasher. Never thought that you could wash electronics, not that I want to start, but it sure does clean things up. But what about the long term left on residual chemicals left on after doing a chemical rinse. Wouldn't that damage or shorten the life of a fragile IF transformer? Please elaborate, you got my attention now. Wow.

Standard procedure at Tektronix for refurbishing test gear included washing (as told to us at Zenith by the Tek rep). I don't know what kind of detergent may have been used, and would imagine that distilled or deionized water was used for final rinse.

I think as long as the chemicals aren't too harsh and you get the equipment dried quickly there won't be a problem. The only time I had problems washing something was the chassis in a low end Curtis Mathes stereo console, and that was in the AM IF transformers which used the troublesome internal mica wafer capacitors, so they would have had problems anyway. I subbed in transformers from a junk radio chassis not knowing that I likely could have repaired the originals. Everything else on it worked OK, and I was able to get rid of the dirt and cigarette tar.

I've been known on chassis that smell moldy or are hideously dirty to spray them down with the garden hose in jet mode then sun dry... hasn't caused me any issues yet... granted I try to minimize aim at transformers.

What do you mean by a "chemical rinse"?

Yesterday I tackled the yoke cover. Just the side of the yoke cover was in bad shape. the top and bottom were ok. After removing the cover, I chipped off the side and left the bottom.

I then made a new side using 1/32 plywood. After fabricating the new side, I soaked the outside using CA glue as a base for the primer. I sanded it then shot some primer on it.

Once dry I installed the new side and used some 5 minute epoxy to glue it to the bottom. Once dry, I then painted it gloss black.

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Chris, what I meant by chemical rise is that usually at a car wash the final rinse isn’t just water. It’s water and some kind of a rinse agent. Whatever the rinse agent is what I meant. Buy the way that’s turning in to a very nice restoration.

The final rinse is de-ionized water. "Spot Free" rinse at the car wash.

Thank you,

I aligned the chassis today. It went well and quick. This thing plays well. The chassis is as far as it will go till it is installed back into the cabibet and all the picture controls can be adjusted.

On to the radio. Still no documentation.

On what appears to be an AA6 with PP audio like that as long as the values have not rubbed or burned off the components it is pretty easy to restore them without a schematic...Simple sets like that I often don't even bother to get a print while restoring (except for the occasional problem child).