How about that? Montgomery Wards made some good stuff.

[MRX37]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

\\

I hear you! I could fix a lot of those older TV's without a diagram. These newer TV's are often too complex to try to fix in the dark.

Well, not so much complex, but made with cryptic layouts, tiny, hard to read numbers, and unlabeled IC's that could be for pretty much anything...

[Lady Ayeka]

Originally Posted by MRX37

Try taking the remote apart and cleaning the contacts with rubbing alcohol.

i do that as a matter of course with every used remote i get. i go a step further in fact, and wash all the chassis parts and rubber membrane sheet in DAWN water in the sink. some may be scratched to hell and back, but at least they're squeaky clean...

[MRX37]

This is kinda on topic, but not really. However, I don't see a board for chainsaws anywhere.

I found an old Montgomery Wards electric chainsaw. It's easy to take apart and clean. The chain that was on it is quite dull. Not having access to a suitable file, I switched it out for another, better chain. It also has a small oil tank which I filled.

The chainsaw works pretty good. I cut through a 6 inch thick log without too much trouble.

So, two Montgomery wards products, both from the 80's (the chainsaw may be older), and both were easy to fix.

[slow_jazz]

I think both Penneys and Montgomery Wards had some very good units. First thing to look for is Made In Japan on the back.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by bgadow

Considering that Wards sold a lot of "Admiral" branded stuff in the late 90s, I wonder if Zenith might have made any of 'em? That would be some irony.

Actually, in the early 1990's, I distinctly recall seeing Admiral-branded sets at Monkey Wards that were very obviously made by Zenith. Somehow I thought that was a bit fitting, since Admiral and Zenith were geographic neighbors.

Now, while at that time, Admiral was practically a Wards house-brand as far as consumer electronics were concerned, I did notice that TVs bearing the "real" Wards house brand ("Signature 2000") were not re-badged Zeniths; I seem to recall that they appeared to be Sanyo-made, but I might be misremembering that.

[andy]

000

[bgadow]

Originally Posted by Whirled One

Actually, in the early 1990's, I distinctly recall seeing Admiral-branded sets at Monkey Wards that were very obviously made by Zenith. Somehow I thought that was a bit fitting, since Admiral and Zenith were geographic neighbors.

Now, while at that time, Admiral was practically a Wards house-brand as far as consumer electronics were concerned, I did notice that TVs bearing the "real" Wards house brand ("Signature 2000") were not re-badged Zeniths; I seem to recall that they appeared to be Sanyo-made, but I might be misremembering that.

Someday that will be a trivia question, along with the Admiral-built Sony color TV!

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by andy

I've seen at least one Zenith made Signature 2000. Later Zenith's even had a mode in the service menu that changed the remote codes, and how the on screen display looked.

Interesting about the Zenith/Signature 2000 observation. Actually, now that I think about it, I remember seeing department-store-label console on the curb on trash day a while back that surprised me, since I recognized it as a Zenith Advanced System 3 console in disguise. I think it was made in 1990 or so, which was a few years before I saw those Sanyo(?)-made Signature 2000 sets alongside the "Zenith" Admirals at M-W. I'm trying to remember for sure if the set I saw was a Signature 2000, but I think it was.

You're right about that option in the Zenith service menu-- it's the "ZEN/PL" mode select option at least on some early/mid-90's Zenith-made sets. I tried that once long ago on a 1993 25" Zenith which was my main TV at the time. If I remember correctly, setting it to "PL" (Private Label) not only altered the labeling of some of the OSD menu items, but it also removed a few of the menu options entirely. I suppose if someone wanted to save a few bucks at the time, they could have bought a "private-label" Zenith, then gone into the service menu and turned it into a "real" Zenith set.
...Not that doing that would have improved the reliability of the CRTs they were using at the time, however.

The service menu was pretty cool though. At least on some Zenith lines, the service menu included a number of settings that were obviously intended for hotel/business/institutional applications. At the time, I figured that if I ever encountered a *really* annoying salesperson at a store that sold Zenith TVs, I thought the following procedure would be a funny (read: mean) practical joke to pull. Go into the service menu on one of the display models in the store, then enable the "power set on automatically when AC cord plugged in" option, set the default power-on channel to an active channel, set the minimum/power-on sound volume to its maximum, and disable the front panel controls. Then, exit the service menu, power off or unplug the set and (quickly) leave the store. At most mass-merchandisers, if someone did that, I wonder if the anyone working there would ever figure out what happened or how to fix it.