This unit is in great shape but must have been owned by a heavy smoker!
Everything is coated in a yellow film, check out the before pictures of the chassis, even the tubes were tinted yellow!

The 6L6 outputs are pretty used up, they both check in the bad range and they just look tired, they'll no doubt work but I can't expect full performance out of them.
The chassis has had some modern era repairs done at some time, there are a couple Orange Drops in it, maybe I'll be able to find a date code on them.

Meanwhile I started on the cleaning today, I might just have well tossed the chassis in a tub of hot water considering how much I had to soak it to get the crud off.
First I sprayed it with some Purple Cleaner, then I took a flux brush to it and scrubbed off the yellow gunk and followed that up by squirting it off with a hose, I only sprayed the top side though, not underneath, not that it would have hurt anything since it's pretty much all metal and plastics, what isn't is coated in Wax.

I cleaned up the tuner assembly and lubricated it so it works smoothly again, I still need to get a small brush and put some White Grease on some of the sliding parts but it's working pretty well.
The Station Tags were from Southern California Stations, KFI, KNX and one other I couldn't make out.

Next I cleaned and polished the Brass faceplate, the Aqueous parts washer took off the remaining clear lacquer coating but the Brass was badly discolored from years of oily fingers touching it.
I cleaned it with a foam buffing wheel on a slow drill using some metal polish and some vintage Brasso, the Brasso really did the trick, the tarnish came right off.
I followed that up with another round of metal polish and a softer foam buffer, that really made it shine!
Now before anyone accuses me of ruining the Patina this bezel is supposed to shine like the Sun
the areas that weren't tarnished had a nice shiny finish to them.
I need to put a coat of clear on to keep it from tarnishing again.

The Dial Glass was a worry but after inspecting the markings I decided they were in good shape.
True to Magnavox quality they were applied with some type of sturdy paint, it was still glossy and solid, so solid I could pretty much scrub it as needed to get it clean with no damage done.

The chassis and bezel look real nice. Isn't it amazing how one of these will clean up?

Nice unit thanks for showing

I've found that sets with heavy Smoking deposits on them are usually in pretty good shape.
The Tar seems to act like Cosmoline, the hard part is getting it all off, pretty much impossible for paper items like speaker cones and capacitor covers, but metal and glass is very easy.
I even soaked the Velvet like material behind the dial with cleaner and rinsed it out,
the brown water ran heavy!

There must have been large stockpiles of Brass right after the War, lots of late 40's TV's and Phonos used large amounts of it to spruce up their products, never happen today.

The biggest problem with sets that have been in smoker's homes is getting totally rid of the odor. You can get the tar and nicotine off the cabinets and parts, but that smoke odor will still persist somewhat.

The faceplate is beautiful! How is the cabinet itself? Getting that smell out of wood won't be easy.

Similar experience with my Fisher 500B. I soaked the plastic knobs in ammonia. Five minutes later I had what looked like a cup of black coffee.

Regardless of how hard you try, you may still smell it from time to time, especially when it heats up.

The cabinet is nice, it's a Honey Blond, strangely enough it doesn't seem to smell like tobacco.

It has a space for an optional FM radio that I don't have, I was considering installing a PC Motherboard inside the cabinet somewhere with the USB ports and a CD drive in that space so it could be a Multimedia center, a small touchscreen LCD Monitor could just sit on top of the unit to control it.
Note, I'm not talking about modifying the Maggie at all, just putting a PC inside for more music options, the line out from the sound card would be routed into the Amp somehow.

Not sure how well a PC Motherboard in close proximity to the Chassis will work though from a noise standpoint.

I have a late model Dual Core HP Laptop M/board with a damaged keyboard connector, it works fine with a USB keyboard however, it's very compact and would fit inside easily.

I found my original thread on this unit, it has more pictures, including on of the Bezel before I cleaned it up. viewtopic.php?f=9&t=185316&hilit=Magnavox+berkely

Good ideas. What about the heat factor?

While I have a similar set in a different case, this is the radio chassis. Does it really belong in phonographs??
How about electrical restoration? Might get looked at more there.
Eric, I can testify that while the oscilator is a pain to adjust, they play excellently.. Very high quality of sound, and, great reception.
Bill Cahill

Well Bill, while it does have a radio on that chassis, I was thinking more in terms of it being the Amplifier for the Phonograph.

O.K. Just wondering...
ON my Maggies, I still have to finnish them. My 1947 Rad-TV-Ph I had playing with replacement tweeters. The sound is sweet, to say the least. I have to put that stuff back together. Tv still un tried. Hasn't been on in 8 years.

On the other, Radio plays great, but, am osc. at high end is way off, and, I don't know which of 4 adjustments to tune. On phono, it needs a cartridge.

On motor wirring... Is the wirring the same for all the changers, not including ones with solonoids, that is....
I can't find re built changer, but, found another with a bad crystal cartridge. Is motor wirring the same?
Bill Cahill
Can you show me which admustments on top of chassis are for am?
Thanks.................

Started recapping and already a problem.

This set has been worked on before, some caps have been changed.

I found a pin on one of the 6L6 sockets that had a clipped connection, I don;t know if it;s a factory screw up or done during the past recapping.

I also found a floating connection between a resistor and one of the newer caps, this could have gone to the clipped lead at the socket, possibly the socket is just a tie point (pin 6 of a 6L6) and they left it off for some reason.

Anyway I could really use a manual for this chassis if anyone has one scanned or for sale cheap. The Chassis is a CR-198 D, there's a 198 C also but it apparently uses 6V6 outputs so I don't know how similar it would be.

I can send a PDF of SAMS 17-20. It covers A, B, & C which have 6L6G. I'm sure you can work with it. There is one condition on receiving this scan. You have to promise you won't use Chinese tubes. No, not really. Send a PM or scramble or post email here.

Bill J.

Hi Bill, thank you very much! I promise, the 6L6 tubes in it now are one Westinghouse and one something else, they are very well used but still make gobs of volume so I don't think I really need to replace them, though I may keep my eye out for some while they are still somewhat affordable. I had thought about using 6BG6's and running a plate cap wire up top.

I may not need a schematic since I did the first test run tonight and it sounds good, however I would like to have it to double check a few things.

I posted a video on YouTube showing the changer doing it's thing, there are a few bugs to be worked out but basically it's all working!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhne-q13hIg

Eric, she's looking good. It does have tons of volume.

Larry, it seems to have a lot of volume in the video but that is also with it turned up full blast, in reality it's just at a listenable level and the Bass is pretty weak.

I have this same type cartridge installed in a cheapie Admiral Tabletop 78 player and it works much better.

The sound is clear though so I think the cartridge may be good, I have a Dynaco pre amp with a Ceramic input and Bass/Treble controls, I think I'll try it with that and see how it sounds, or perhaps there's a way to modify the Phono input to work with a lower voltage cartridge?