An Intimidating Experience

[Nowhere-Man]

The oozing wax capacitor was most likely the mains filter.
Back in the 1980s a work mate had a TV in as a private job. The fault was that it had gone bang and some smoke had come out and the owner was worried about it.
The mains filter capacitor was split clean in half.
It is not unknown for them to blow up and smash a valve or even a tuning dial.

I had a look around the big reservoir cap and took you all a pic of the infamous "wax oozing cap". Still mystified as to how the onset of smoking and melting came about as the bulb socket I wired to is only 3.5 volts. That was the only change I made, given the former wires had no insulation in parts. Maybe it was just disturbing the chassis sort of pushed the ancient mains supply over the edge and it was due to blow at any time soon.

Here is the cap.