Hey All! Looking for guidance to locate either old stock or reproduction knobs for a Bendix 646a I’ve got. Anyone able to point me in the right direction?

I’m a tube amp guy and have restored, repaired or built quite a few guitar and Hifi radios over the years. Radio is something, that while I understand conceptually from my college courses, is not something I’ve ever played with before.

So awhile back I was in an antique shop and came across this thing. It was ratty and nasty, but the shop owner insisted it worked and then insisted on plugging it in. It kinda, almost picked up a radio station but hummed so bad it was obvious that the filter caps were about to let go.

So I took it home and over the course of a week, I recapped it. All of a sudden it was just a monster receiver but the speaker kept letting go (there was no amount of speaker glue that was going to hold that cone together), so I had it reconed and replaced the 6ohm voice coil with an 8-ohm.

Then I thought to myself, how much AM/SW radio do I really listen to, so I put a switch in line between the tuner and audio amp that would allow me to plug in a Bluetooth receiver or go back to stock.

I’m an absolute shit woodworker and had given the cabinet to my buddy in exchange for some other work. Unfortunately, he didn’t do much with it and I took it back a couple months later and decided to just try my hand at it. So I stripped it and refinished it myself with some rattlecan minwax.

It’s not stock looking, but for a $35 radio I think it came back together pretty well.

Anyone know where I can take my 1960s RCA Victor radio/record player console for repairs in southern Manitoba? Or as far north as Interlake? I tried Columbus radio in Winnipeg as suggested on other platforms, but unfortunately they don’t have room for my system unless I wanted to gut it and bring them only the hardware….

Failing that, how would it affect operations and sound quality if I were to cut the wires from the turntable to the radio chassis and install connectors? And what type of connectors would be best suited for this?

I recently received a Philco 630B chassis and speaker as a gift to work on but this thing has stumped me on what I'm looking at. First of all there are two diodes on the pins of the 80 tube which seems to be blown. Second, one of the electrolytic cans exploded everywhere. Third, the electrolytic cans are both not to the right values as the schematic's values. 3 of the 4 are chassis ground on the schematic but all are connected to chassis ground. Lastly, random things are cut and I assume moved or straight removed. Prime example being how a bakelite block is plain isolated with all but one lead being empty. Some look cut off. The only taken lead has a capacitor going to it from a tube but why is it just a capacitor going to nothing? These are my current questions on different things that have happened here. I have a lot of time so I'd rather ask these questions before I jump the gun and screw this thing up on accident. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

https://preview.redd.it/bhxcsenrnzsd1.png?width=1312&format=png&auto=webp&s=ae9c2eab0824380a1af295694df09e5101509054

https://preview.redd.it/7bikjenrnzsd1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=af47563def25e10bf54d0a6728a634de9ddcbd00

Those diodes.

https://preview.redd.it/c586jp13ozsd1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d024dcbd1f09cc7a62fc7a5e18d9093344f20265

https://preview.redd.it/sj0dey03ozsd1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f579564b236cef25460a3ce1d39bfd868a5103f2

swapped all regular caps, minus the bakelite blocks and electrolyics. The block on the back of the chassis, here it's on the right, is the isolated one with on capacitor only...

The blown up cap

On this one, only the \"560uf\" terminal is used..

Only the \"560uf\" is being used. That should be a 16uf!

Can't even read this, plus it blew up.

I'm working on restoring a portable zenith radio model H503-Y. I was wondering how to wire the AC plug. I don't have a lot of experience in that area and was worried about polarity. I'd also like to know about building a replacement battery pack that meets the z909 specs.

I think I've narrowed down that this is a C430-A. At first I thought that it might be a 415, and I ordered an original repair sheet on eBay. According to that, the 415 has a resistor and a capacitor that are not present on my board. Replacement caps are on order. Can someone fill me in on what the -A, -B, -C indicates? I see that the 430, 416, etc. refers to the case color, but I haven't found an explanation for the letter designator.