At the recommendation of my good friend, badrestorer on ARF, I decided to get a Heathkit signal tracer. I found a four tube Heathkit T-3 visual-aural signal tracer on eBay...seller said it worked...yeah, right!!!... the green tuning eye didn't light up, it hummed, and there was all sorts of static in it. "Works" just means that the tubes light up I suppose!!!

Anyway, here's a picture of it. The front face was in very nice original condition.



I then replaced all the wax caps in the amplifier, and used a terminal strip to mount all the parts that attached to the original can electrolytic lugs. But wait, I've got to put four 22uF 450-volt electrolytics in there... and there isn't enough room on that side underneath. I then decided to mount a second terminal strip on the other side of the amplifier where there was plenty of room, and, ran hookup wires to the corresponding terminal strip connectors. I am waiting for the electrolytics to arrive in the mail in order to complete the electronics restoration. The tuning eye tube didn't light up at first, but that was because of a cold solder joint in one of its hookup wires. I found a total of two cold solder joints in the original assembly person's work.



The metal case was a bit rough, with paint peeled off in various places, so I went to Home Depot and got some gray hammertone paint and repainted the case. I polished the aluminum case handle also.



I wasn't at all crazy about the original metal braided ground wire with alligator clip that came on the test probe. I could just see that getting across some high voltage components in there and shorting something out. So, I replaced the braided wire with an insulated black clippie wire, which was exactly what I needed.



John (badrestorer) is going to show me how to use this signal tracer once I get it restored. I sure could have used it a week or so ago when I was having all kinds of problems in my RCA Victor Mark I system. But, it'll be there when I need to troubleshoot an audio problem in an amplifier or radio in the future! This has been a fun little project....