[Chas]

I may have missed this early on....

It appears that the 18 is being setup as a teaching aid rather than a restoration.. None the less my responses are still accurate...

I encountered my first 18 at about 9 years old. Seems a friend had the 18 retired from a family member in the back work room behind their garage. It was humming madly and I knowing nothing at the time had hoped it was a bad connection I poke circuits with a stick until I slipped and hit B+. That ended my learning curve on 18's for about 8 years.  

All of the RCA's in this series of split chassis do not have a means to accurately align the RF sections. Any damage, repositioning of the RF coils can change the tracking and not in a linear manner. I have used extra turns on the coils as well as reverse turns to alter inductance, cocking the stators of the tuning condensers. RCA did not arrange the rotors that are external to the stators, meaning bending the rotors will not work to compensate for tracking errors. The same procedure as well as changing certain fixed condensers applies to the Radiola 60 Superhetrodyne...

Good Luck!

Chas