Old Zenith Tube Set

[vinyldavid]

In my grandmother's basement, there is an OLD Zenith Tube TV. IT has a Zenith $ervice $aver chassis. It works perfectly. Is there anything I should be worried about with maintenance and such? It was my Great-Grandmother's. I did not have a camera to take pics or anything to write on/with. Next time I am there, I will get all of the numbers.

Anyone know anything about these sets?
It's very pretty, and the tuner still tunes perfectly.

[Tubejunke]

LOVE that quote!!

[Tube TV]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

LOVE that quote!!

Me too
If you want to use the set daily , a recap would be a good idea . How old is it .

[vinyldavid]

I don't know. I believe that it is from the Fifties. I wanted to maybe convince my mother to put it into the living room. It looks like one of the nicer models. I could barely lift it off the floor, and I believe that it is a 20 inch picture tube (best guess). Only gets used during storms, and I put another small TV down there that my grandmother can move and use when needed. I know audio, but I'm now to TV's, so for any maintenance, I will need some help.

[Tube TV]

Well your at the right place for vintage TV advice .
I'd love to see some picture of it .
I might have the schematics for it , im not sure .
Find out the model # and then somone here will know the year .
I would say a recap would keep this set up and running for a long time .
the main things that die on a TV are the caps especially in the vertical and horizontal circiuts . sometimes old electrolitics will short out a and this could damage the power transformer and the rectifier . the same thing can happen in the high voltage section . A recap is alot cheaper and easier than doing a transformer , if you can find one .
These TV's are pretty straight forward to service .
Does this set have a remote ?

[vinyldavid]

No remote, and I do not think that there was ever a provision for one.
One interesting thing to me is that it takes an inordinate amount of fiddling to get it to turn on, between the front pull switch/volume control and back silver pull switch. Can anyone tell me what does what? I use this thing so infrequently that I can never remember.

[bgadow]

The back switch sounds interesting. Some of the remote models had similiar arrangements. Remember that Zenith had wireless remote as early as about 56. Those are usually borderline when it comes to caps. Many of them still work but if it is going to see regular use then replace the paper caps and the electrolytics. They want kidding when they called them $ervice $aver. Very reliable sets. I have not had such good luck with their picture tubes, though.

[Sandy G]

Yeah-My grandad had a "300" series Zenith table model B&W w/about a 21" screen that was VERY "1956" looking. It had this funky remote that had tuning bars (?) that when struck, activated a motor inside the tuner that made the channel go up or down..."Ker-Chunk, Ker-Chunk, Ker-Chunk..." IIRC, it would also turn the set on or off, but that was about it. You had to aim the damthing right directly at the TV, unless you were RIGHT at the correct angle & distance, it wouldn't work. I got yelled at LOTS of times for "Playing" w/it-"You're gonna tear the damthing up, & then I'm gonna Bust yer Behind !!" (grin)

[kbmuri]

Color or B/W?

[vinyldavid]

B/w

[kbmuri]

I have two $ervice $aver Zeniths, a 1964 B/W and a 1965 color. Both still work on original components. I don't know when the term first appeared.

[vinyldavid]

OK, well, I went to my grandmothers house last night, and I copied down all the numbers I could find.

Zenith SA2031W
Chassis 1SL23
L7A

ALSO, there is a Chromacolor 2 that is pretty messed up in the tuner section. #'s off that are:
6060183
SF1960K

That's all I found. Any info on these?

[vinyldavid]

Bump

[drh4683]

The b/w zenith is a 1964 model. The chassis is a 15L23 and uses 23ECP4 crt. The chormacolor II is a 1975 model with a 19FC45 chassis. Hang onto both of those. That chormacolor II should have space command 600Z remote control. The chroma II also has the vertical indicator varactor tuner. Nice sets. What exactly is wrong with it? (btw, thats a great quote!)

[nasadowsk]

Does the older Zenith have a second chassis in there, and a motor on the tuner? That'd make it a remote set

Those older Zeniths were great, they don't need much work to be kept in good, safe condition for a long time. Once you learn how to handle a CRT safely, you might want to dust the set out inside, especially the HV box, which tends to be tiny in Zeniths. I've never had luck with 'em dirty.

Mostly, it'll need a cap check (if you've got the newer types, they're generally good, the 'Black Beauty' types are always bad), cleaning, and some careful checking. Nothing difficult. If you can use a multimeter, you're 90% of the way there