I enjoy fixing things. Yup. A few people I know have gotten wind that I fix old electronic junk and through the years I've had my hands on some interesting things. Today's long-running but nearly-complete thing is a 1933 Zenith "Model 7" that fits in the hole vacated by the glove-box in the dash. This is where I began with it. Sat on the bench, vacuuming years of dead things and dust out of it. Stripped it all down and cleaned it all up. Overall in really very good shape for having been sat in a Missouri barn for nearly 50 years. Worked on a few of the little details, like tidying up chewed-up screw heads and giving them a nice shiny coat of nickel. Started replacing all the old components- most of which were no good or borderline. All new parts should see it work reliably again for another 20-30 years certainly.
Very nearly completed the rewire, got it all aligned and picking up radio stations, running happily on the bench for hours. Tried my hand at a bit of bodywork. Cleaned up and painted the sheet metal of the case. Polished the dial bezel, cleaned the glass and tried the front on for size. Looks good. Will look better with new knobs (on the way, the originals are long gone). Lucked out and found a place in Louisiana (of all places) that is remanufacturing the exact grill cloth. You can see the scrap that came off- that was the best bit, hidden inside! The new cloth is beautiful and should look really good. Up to date to tonight, that's the third go around painting the case. Wrinkle paint, the original finish, is a pig to get right. Worth it though. Phil
Unfortunately yes. I've got 2 more to do after this one, it's been time intensive but done as a favor (parts only no labor). Phil
Ok, that's come out nicely. Antenna cable with modern DIN connector arrived too (all modern stuff is connected with these now, you can't get an antenna terminated without one so it might as well be easy for the end user). Waiting on the rest of it to arrive. Edit: Antenna wire arrived so I fixed that. Wrapped it in fabric looming tape so it looks a little less out of place. Phil
In parts, not too bad considering it's a full rebuild. In hours, many. Worth it though, it's a real nice '32. Phil
Ended up redoing the grille cloth. Looks good now. Very rusty lid clip cleaned up, polished and nickel plated. Reattached to the case and it holds the top on again. Phil
Worked the top side of the chassis tonight and replaced the crispy old wire with new yellow cotton (as it was originally) covered wire, so it looks a bit more correct when the lid is popped off to access the tubes. Added aux-in and isolated it from the rest of the chassis in case a tube goes short, won't take the iPod or whatever with it. Reassembly into case possibly tomorrow. Phil
Damn that's neat! It's great to see a radio fixed instead of just gutted. Seems like there's way too many console stereos getting totally trashed these days. In addition to your photos of working on it I hope you're able to take some pictures of it once it's installed.
Some guys used to charge a $50 flat rate, X the number of tubes, at least on standard tabletop radios. Or $90 an hour would be typical maybe, depending on location.
Could see how that would add up quickly. At $50 per tube this would have been a $150 rebuild- that's less than the price of the parts that went into it! $90 an hour and I had maybe 30 hours in it total ($2700, not very favorable). I think $202 is reasonable, in fairness (parts-only). --Phil
If you count the rectifier as a tube, 6. (Yes, I know it's a tube but it's just part of the power supply from my perspective)
To give you an idea. http://www.2040-parts.com/1933-1934-ford-glove-box-radio-all-original--i1047657/
I know they aren't cheap - though looking at that one I think I did a moderately good job of getting it looking right- that doesn't even include replacing the bits that are no more good... --Phil
Well, to dig a thread up from the past, I'll be seeing this radio again. It went back to its owner, and sat on the shelf while he finished his A. Between then and now he converted the car to 12V, hooked the radio up and it played for about 5 minutes before going pop and letting the magic smoke out. Yeah, you guessed it, originally he said to keep it 6V because that's what the car was. He forgot. I really hope it hasn't cooked the transformer. It'll get fixed, I'll see if I can get a photo of it installed, though. Phil
Wow, that's super cool. There's a guy not too far from where I live that fixes old radios, TVs, and vaccums. Walking past his shop in the window is always a huge wall of old radios. It's getting harder and harder to find the tubes for those though. My car's radio is a joke, it was a factory radio delete car and the old owner just slapped a broken radio in the spot for looks, it's being held on poorly by the nuts that hold the knobs on. I took the cover off and there was a family of spiders living in there. And nobody makes the 3 prong speaker connectors for these anyway.
The Jalopy Journal
