1950's Zenith L2258E console b&w rescued yesterday
 

Picked this set up yesterday making it the oldest in my collection. Previous owner said he thinks he remembers his mom and dad buying it new in '55. Said it still worked last time he plugged it in. Brought it home and cleaned the inside and out. Haven't tested yet. Anything i should worry about before plugging in? What year was this one made? I bet Zeno knows. Chassis is 19L27.


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Definitely dont just plug it into 12O volts, bring it up slow on a varaic at least, smelling for smoke and monitoring the rectifier tube for overload. Big chance the filter caps need replacing on any set that old. Or just replace the main filter caps before even trying it. If they havnt failed yet, they would still be at high risk for failure once the set is used again. They just dont last 50plus years. Just normal maintence for this old stuff.

I would count on replacing all of the old paper capacitors as well as the electrolytics. That's standard procedure if you want to make the TV safe and reliable to play. Here are a couple of articles to get you started. The first one explains recapping and the second describes some other restoration basics:

http://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm

http://antiqueradio.org/FirstStepsInRestoration.htm

The next page lists a number of TV restoration articles. None of them is exactly like your set, but if you skim a couple of the B/W articles, you'll get an idea what it usually takes to get one working:

http://antiqueradio.org/televisions.htm

Regards,

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

I restored a '53 version of that chassis and it is still working on the original lytics...It was the first TV I got working when I started messing with TVs.

Watch out for an error in the capacitor values in the vertical circuit in the sam's.
One of the vert. caps in mine was noted with a different value in the schematic (factor of 10 error) vs. the parts list, and because it was restored during a move once I had video to see the issue with vertical frequency it caused I could not find the original cap I had replaced to determine if I had replaced it with the right part....I ended up playing with resistance values to correct the problem. I can only imagine the headaches the next tech who gets the set is going to have figuring things out if the vertical dies...

Would a dim bulb tester work in this case. I don't have a variac at the moment. I need to take better pics now that i have a new cam.

Anything would be better than hitting it with full line voltage. I used to do that until I lucked out and found a simple variable AC supply. I think it is a Select-a-Volt; not a true Variac. I have a 2 ton Variac in my shed with some weird plugs for input and output that I haven't figured out yet.

The Powerite PR57 is the best one.

Better than nothing. Use a light bulb whose wattage makes sense with your TV's wattage.

Phil Nelson

How much do they usually go for?

What im getting out of it so far......

Not too far off from the '53 Zenith Walton depicted in my avatar, a 17", the model I grew up with. I remember it had a few intermittent problems with the tuner and vert or horiz hold, my Dad would stomp his foot on the floor from across the room (pier and beam house) and often the vibration of his foot stomp would temporarily fix the problem. Kept that set in the family in my parents house until 1997 when it went to the estate sale guy's warehouse to be sold, last time I saw it. If I'd the room for it at the time I would have kept it.

Got it working but only the top half of the screen is lit. No sound or channel display at the knob. I'm assuming there's a light behind there.