Can remote control chassis cause strange playablility issues?

[Tubejunke]

Since I couldn't GIVE it away, I guess I will do what I should have done in the first place and find out where the mystery short is in my 1959 24" Zenith Space Command. I have posted about this set plenty of times, so for those who have already heard my woes, please overlook while I bring the story up to date.

When I brought this set in, it had the usual coating of dust, but under that dust was a super clean chassis with all stock Zenith tubes and the CRT tests like new. Just that made me feel like the job would be a breeze if not a "plug and play." Well, no such luck! After a slow warm-up I powered it up and had a volume adjustable hum with no vertical sweep. So, I bought all of the capacitors that I would need and installed them. I replaced everything but the ceramic discs. I was surprised that after the job was done I had exactly the same symptoms!

That was a couple of years ago. After carefully looking for any solder bridges and bad resistors I wrote the set off as one that "stumped" me. THAT was before I attended college in a electronics degree program. If the program taught me nothing else it taught me that there is no such thing as "stumped"! When a problem exists, I should be able to figure it out! One thing that holds me back in troubleshooting THIS chassis is the fact that there is no way to check voltages with everything hooked up unless Zenith had sense enough to design a voltage check chart so key voltages could be checked from the top via the connection strips. If the DID do this, I would like to find a copy of the information. Also, here at home I do not have some of the professional equipment that one may use in troubleshooting, so I am stuck with a DVOM and a tube tester.

I must ad the fact that in my last component check I did that I found a weird looking coil that looked more like an insect larvae than a component; it was open. It was located somewhere in, if memory serves me correctly, the video circuitry. The only marking was a GREEN dot on the blackish gelatin looking exterior of the thing which protrudes through a hole in the chassis and is more or less hidden by one of the cans where a larger adjustable coil is mounted with a small ceramic disc and a solid state diode connected. Anyway, I doubt seriously that this is the heart of the problem, but if I ever get vertical sweep and proper sound this coil WILL need to be replaced and I am not sure how to identify it.

What led me to start this thread though was an afterthought that I had concerning what symptoms may arise as components become faulty within the remote control chassis. I mean, after all, it is directly connected to the main chassis, so I would think that it could have at least some effect. However, you can turn the remote unit off and you would think that turning it off would eliminate this possibility. I would like to know as not too many people talk about remote control issues. I am not concerned at this time in getting the remote working as the control is missing. I just want to make sure that it is not the issue that keeps me from repairing this set.

If anyone had any tips one these Zeniths I would really appreciate the lead. My next step is to remove the vertical output transformer and check for shorted windings as best I can with an ohm meter and no specs. At least I can tell if either lead is shorted to ground or open. I would think that a dead short to ground would have something heating up and/or smoking out which is not the case. I think that a Megger is the best thing for really checking windings. I also need to check tube sockets for bad connections. Other than that, I hope someone here familiar with what is supposed to be one of the best performing chassis ever made will have some ideas!

Thanks in advance!