[mikethedruid]

Today my RCA C9-4 arrived safe and sound ! I must compliment the seller. Communications regarding the shipping was excellent, and he did a wonderful job of packing it. I advised him to go to Harbor Freight and buy mover's blankets and use those for wrapping it and padding instead of Styrofoam, which he did. It saved a HUGE load of mess, and made unwrapping it a whole lot easier. I really look forward to restoring it. I am VERY happy looking at the grill cloth. It is PERFECT ! The cabinet is in pretty good shape too. I will have to do a little re-gluing of the top to the rest of the cabinet, along with some of the little triangular pieces used to help tie the top to the rest of the cabinet, but, other than that it is fine, and will clean up nicely. I don't think I will have to do more than clean it well with Go-Jo, and then give it a coat or two of tung oil to bring back the gloss. I took these pictures of it right after I finished unpacking it.

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/be2596a7c767...6197b6.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/af5b5bf7e15a...6b439f.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/f2fdd205abd3...f987fd.jpg]

[mikethedruid]

Well, I pulled the chassis and what do you know......
[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/131b096e26d0...3b6dff.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/27b79e2863d8...9b6ac6.jpg]

and THAT, my friends, is why you NEVER just plug in a radio you just bought to try it out ! You could end up burning your house down.

Look at the wires inside that area where the rodents chewed off the insulation...

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/905cfb2fb4cb...af4cdc.jpg]

and YES, that IS the line cord going to the on - off switch !

Other than that, the underside does not look too bad. I really like these old RCA radios, lots of room to work; a whole lot easier than their later ones, and, sorry to say this here, but easier than the Philcos of the period.

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/e9ad4d05d1a2...47140a.jpg]

The topside of the chassis looks a lot better, a little dusty and dirty, but better...
[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/544015322e69...f6e584.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/2730ef029c4d...1f3e3a.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/ae5fe1efd05e...1ef7e7.jpg]

And that is as far as I have gotten this evening. Things actually look pretty good, very restorable. The chassis is now on my bench. First thing I must attend to is those chewed up wires.

[mikethedruid]

Actually, the very first thing I attended to was testing all the tubes. What do you know, they all tested GOOD, some in the lower end of good, but good none the less. The only one missing is the 6E5 magic eye tube. I already have two replacements in stock, and have 4 more on their way to me from Thailand, of all places, old Japanese stock. Eventually I am going to have to make a clamp to hold the 6E5. The original seems to be missing from the radio. No big deal. Just a little play time with sheet tin. That's what old cans are for. Now that the tubes are tested and out of the chassis, tomorrow I will begin some major cleaning up of the dust on the top and in the tuning condenser. Looks like another job for Dill's pipe cleaners. Then, on to those chewed up wires. I am pretty sure it was a chipmunk's nest. I found beech nut shells in among the debris. Chipmunks LOVE beech nuts.

[Dan Walker]

I did have one of those RCA radios, but Mine was a C8-16 which has a very similar cabinet.
         Although mine did not have all the challenges you have with the rotted wire.
 you do have a bit of work to do ..but the radios do sound very nice and look good.
              I agree that you do have a fair bit of room under the chassis.
      The wood on my cabinet did come out very good and I do see some similarities in both cabinets,
and the dial is the same.
  The little knob with the world on it just adds to the look of the radio good luck in your restoration.
Here are a couple of photos of mine.
 Dan in Calgary.

[mikethedruid]

Wow, Dan, Pretty radio !     Yes, it IS very similar to mine. You did a beautiful job on the cabinet too.     Thanks for sharing !

[mikethedruid]

I decided to tackle the chewed up wires underneath the chassis even before I cleaned the top side. First thing I replaced was the chewed up line cord. I then started to replace the CT wire from the HV winding of the power transformer. I then decided to take DETAILED pictures of the underside of the chassis before I did anything further so I have some idea of how things WERE before I did work. Somewhere along the line somebody replaced the original two filter condensers with one multi section condenser, possibly during WW2 or just after, or in the 1950s. I will have to make a couple of replacement replicas. (see my thread about restoring the Philco 38-10  https://philcoradio.com/phorum/showthread.php?tid=22318 )  Fortunately I have a junk Philco chassis from which I have robbed the two clamps I will need for the replicas. Here is a photo of the underside of the chassis showing the area where I am working.  You can see the new line cord running across in the same place as the old chewed one, the blue (hot) wire going to the switch and the brown (grounded) wire going to a terminal strip. It's a nice cord, looks just like the original, but it uses the European color code. You can also see the brown and yellow wire from the transformer I replaced. It is just connected on one end since the other connects to one terminal of the filter condenser, which will be coming out and be replaced.

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/84954f841f5b...23ff3e.jpg]

Still a LOT more to do. One of the 5V filament wires from the transformer to the 5Z3 will have to be replaced too, some chewed insulation on it. And then there is all that rubber covered wire which is all dry rotted and will have to be replaced. I HATE rubber covered wire ! When I started restoring these old radios more than half a century ago, it was just fine. Nobody thought it would fail like this. Of course, when they built them 80 years ago, nobody expected people to want to collect them, or that they would still be around 80 years later. They were simply a consumer item which people would replace as styles and technology changed. For the most part, that is what people did, and that is why they are rare and collectible now.

[mikethedruid]

I continue to replace decayed rubber wiring, and have begun to replace paper condensers which are in the way where I have to solder the new wiring.

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/2b7be4658cfb...3b6e25.jpg]

Today I sprayed the reproduction filter condensers silver. When they are dry I will be able to install them. So, things are progressing.

[Phlogiston]

If you are going to throw away the old caps, could you save them for me?

Russ

[mikethedruid]

Hi Russ, The CAP (just one) which was on it was NOT the original. It was a 3 section one put on in the late '40s or '50s, of which just 2 sections were used. The originals were LONG GONE, which is why I had to make reproductions and use the clamps from that junk Philco. The originals would have been screw base with a big nut inside the chassis. These repros aren't the same mounting, but they are better than nothing, and nobody but a really anal retentive purist will care. I chopped the terminals off the replacement that was in there, easy way to keep all the connections which should be together together until I put in the new condensers. If you rally want it, I will send it to you, but I don't see much use for it to you or anybody else since it is obviously a late replacement type. If you mean the paper ones, I'll save them for you, sure. To me they are just junk. As you know, I just replace them with the new yellow ones as long as they are under the chassis where nobody will see them. The only exception is when they are used in that odd LC circuit Philco used where the coil is wound around the condenser, gotta use the original tube to make the coil form.

[mikethedruid]

The under chassis work is all done. The replica filter condensers are mounted above the chassis, and wired in. I am going to relax for the rest of the day. I have a long drive out to Philco Mike's place tomorrow, and then back home again. Here is what the underside of the chassis looks like done...

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/60ebfb89ec80...b60ea0.jpg]

Next I will have to carefully remove the speaker from the cabinet so I can use it to test and align the radio. That can wait a couple of days.

[PhilcoMike]

Great work Mike!

[mikethedruid]

I removed the speaker from the cabinet last night after driving back from Philco Mike's with the new ( to me ) cabinet for my Scott 800B radio / phono. It was about 300 miles total there and back. When I got home I pretty much just wanted to relax, but I saw the speaker still in the cabinet of the RCA so I decided to at least remove that so I could get on with fiurther work once my tube order comes in. I was very pleased that the removal went smoothly. The cone didn't stick at all or need to be coaxed off with a spatula.

ATTENTION NEW GUYS !!! That is something I learned the hard way, and had to re-cone a speaker because of it !. Sometimes your original speaker will stick to the mounting board. If you remove the nuts from the retaining screws, and just pull on the speaker, you can rip the cone out ! It pays to be very gentle when first seeing if it is stuck after the nuts are off. If it is, a thin spatula inserted between the front edge of the speaker and the mounting board, then gently and carefully worked around the circumference can save you a great deal of misery. Be careful though not to insert it too far and stab the cone with the spatula, just work the edge.

So, now things are on hold for a few days with the RCA. Later this afternoon a couple of my buddies are coming by to help me wrestle the new cabinet for my Scott into my shed where it can sit until I get around to it.

[mikethedruid]

My #46 bulbs came in today, along with my 5Z3 tubes. My original was fine, but I like to have extras. Last night I rewired the two bulb sockets for the dial with new cloth covered wire. Today I installed the bulbs for the dial. I am still waiting on the 6J7 tubes to come in, the metal ones. I want to install all of them before I go on to alignment. Still, there were things I could do today. I lubricated all the bearing points on the tuning condenser and all its associated hardware, and cleaned and dusted the tuning condenser itself. I also lubricated the indicator for the bands, and sprayed the band switch itself with contact cleaner and worked it to remove oxidation. I then removed the 5Z3 rectifier, and plugged in the radio to see if the 6V filament voltage was working, as well as the on off switch. SUCCESS ! All went well. The dial bulbs and the filament of the 6F6, the only 6V filament glass tube I will be using, all lit up properly. No smoke, no fire, so far so good !

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/1bb9dc897f18...bbfecd.jpg]

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/b488226ef87e...242634.jpg]

[mikethedruid]

OK, I got impatient. I decided to use the glass 6J7 to give a rough test, so I put the 6J7G in, installed the 5Z3 rectifier and its shield, plugged in the speaker, and turned the radio on. No smoke, no fire, and after about a minute I could hear sounds through the speaker. I attached my short test antenna which is on my bench, about 7 feet of wire. I tuned across each band and could actually hears some stations, especially on band C, the high shortwave band. The volume control was VERY stiff and scratchy, so I turned things off and cleaned it with some spray cleaner and lubricated the shaft with my usual half Marvel Mystery Oil and half 10W30 I use for gun oil. After working it back and forth a few dozen times it freed up nicely. Tried the radio again, and the volume control works very smooth and no scratching. I can hardly wait until tonight when I can give her a little better test. I guess I didn't screw things up TOO bad if it's working this well already.

[mikethedruid]

"They say the night time,
Is the right time,
To be,
With the one you love...."

Well, night time came, and I fired up the radio again. I went through the alignment one more time, this time with my Eico 324 signal generator, double checking everything. I also always use my Tecsun PL-600 digital readout radio to make sure the output of my signal generator is right on. It does not have a band that reads 400 - 500 KC, so I just use the regular AM band at double the IF frequency I am checking. In this case I tuned the Tecsun to 920KC, double the 460 KC IF of the RCA C9-4. For all the rest I just used the actual frequency on the Tecsun. Then I tried it again on my test antenna. I did some final tweaking of the alignment using actual broadcast stations, and now they are dead on all up and down the dial. Great reception and LOTS of stations, every 10 KC it seems, although sometimes there will be two stations which use the same frequency fighting each other. Lord, how I do miss the old "clear channel" days ! Reception is equally good on both short wave bands.

I did notice a problem with the "magic eye" It did not seem to be responding when I tuned in a strong station. I went back in, double and triple checked all the connections both in the radio chassis itself, and also inside the remote socket and socket cover for the 6E5 tube. I finally saw some loose strands from bad soldering IN THE REMOTE SOCKET which I hadn't touched until then. It appears that this was a problem waiting to happen since the day it was made ! I removed the stray strands, redressed the wires inside the housing, put it all back together, and the "magic eye" now works as it should.

So, now on to the cabinet. I'll take it out on my porch where the light is good tomorrow if the weather is nicer than today was, remove the speaker board with the original grill cloth which is in perfect condition, and then clean the cabinet well with go-jo and see what it looks like after that. While it is still wet with the remains of the gojo, you can get a good idea of what it would look like with just a few coats of tung oil rubbed over the surface. It looks pretty good as is, so I expect that may be all I will need to do.

Another thing I now must undertake is making a bracket and mount to hold the 6E5 in place. Good thing I have some scrap sheet tin to make it from, a little thicker than what they make tin cans from, otherwise I would have to resort to using those !