With some of the Zenith chassis I'd swear they are deep enough that you could almost park a car under there.

Curtis Eickerman

Everyone's definitions will be different.

Here are things I consider indicative of a "hack job" relative to this subject (no particular order):

1. Patching new electrolytics across existing ones without removing the existing part electrically.

2. Bridging a wire to a terminal with solder in cases where the wire is too short.

3. Shoddy soldering that looks like someone tried to paint on the solder.

4. Use of a capacitor with a voltage rating at or below the normal operating voltage in-circuit.

5. User of a resistor with a power rating that is not at least 2 times the expected dissipation in the circuit.

6. Flying wire splices without insulation.

7. Multiple components joined in mid-air without a terminal (unless that was the way the radio was designed to be assembled - yeah they sometimes did stupid stuff back then).

8. Failure to install adequate safety items even if they are not "original." The house you burn down may be your own, or worse yet someone else's.

9. Use of improper insulation for spliced wiring connections (e.g. masking tape, transparent tape).

10. Mis-routing high impedance high-gain signal wires. This can mean routing them too close to filament or AC power wires, or even just pulling them up away from the chassis in a way that makes them more susceptible to hum pick-up.

11. Installing components with seriously wrong values (order of magnitude errors in component replacement).

12. Installing "susbstitue" tubes that really are not adequately equivalent (like remote versus sharp cut-off tubes).

13. Leaving out shielding that is supposed to be present (generally tube shields).

14. Creating a wire splice by just twisting wires together then insulating it so no one knows that it isn't soldered without cutting off the insulation. The exception would be the use of standard wire nuts where this is expected.

This could be never ending, but I'll stop.

Curtis Eickerman

Let me describe some of the prior work I am encountering on the 37-610 "Big Bullet" thats currently on my bench.
1. 12mfd lytic replaced with a 125mfd lytic.
2. A replacement for the 16mfd lytic (22mfd) was not actually soldered in place. Leads just wrapped around the wires.
3. The tuner sub-assembly was removed and disassembled so caps inside it could be replaced. Was re-installed with
NO bushings and half the assembly screws either loose or missing. The band selector shaft's tail end was hanging
loose in space.
4. Solder blobs the size of marbles.
5. No connected ground straps from tuning condenser to chassis.
6. Shoddy tacked on solder joints.
7. Set was being operated with one original lytic and 6 original wax caps. (all WAY outta spec).
8. 9K 2watt resistor was broken in half somehow. The genius actually TAPED it back together then slid it back in it's
heat resistant sleeve .
9. Rubber chassis mount washers replaced with stacks of metal washers.

And the icing on the cake....

10. A horrible poly refinish job complete with runs galore!

Its getting torn down completely and rebuilt.

Let me describe some of the prior work I am encountering on the 37-610 "Big Bullet" thats currently on my bench.

Thanks a lot Curtis, I now have 14 things i can't do any more. It will now take me much longer to restore a radio

I was told "it worked fine then just quit one day.

And I took the electrical tape off that broken-in-half 9K resistor and replaced it crazy glue. Holds it together much better ...