Bush TR82C (AKA a Punnetts Town Bargain)

[Crackle]

The radio worked first time I applied power and slowly improved as capacitors reformed, good old OC44 etc. transistors. The quiescent current seems very low and the audio a little distorted if turned up, but then it is only rated 1/4 watt. I will check R20 & R21, I assume these set the bias on the OP pair.
Bias voltage .16 volts, the resistors were marked 9.1k but listed as 10k on the schematic, and measured 11.6k so I changed them just to see if it would help.
I gave the RF alignment a little tweak in order to fit in Gold on 1548kHz.
I have had to repair the on/off tone switch as it had been forced around. I found a similar 1M one and swapped the element.
The dial collar broke off removing the dial, I will have to cast a new centre on to it using epoxy. The original dial pointer was missing and someone had made a flat one out of plastic, it doesn't look right so I will have to scrounge/fabricate a replacement from somewhere..
The aerial socket is missing because an on/off toggle switch had been fitted in place of the aerial socket. (because of the broken on/off tone control)

The case was absolutely filthy and stained yellow with dirt and age. That is probably why it was sold for £1, so it is going in the bath for a good scrub.

Off to mix up some epoxy to mend the dial collar.
Mike

[Terry]

We found out, purely by accident, that old fashioned Windolene (the pink stuff) brought these cabinets up a treat!

I don't know if any of the own brands are still the old style pink stuff - it contains jewellers rouge, I believe.

[Crackle]

Hi Terry, yes it probably would, so would Tcut, I use Brasso wadding for small marks as it is convenient.
I have made a new dial pointer, of sorts. The collar is made from some fairly heavy gauge braiding stretched over a 1/4 inch shaft and then soldered to lock it together.
The pointer from some steel wire with some white plastic sleeving pushed on it.
The epoxy for the new collar for the tuning knob has set and it is a nice snug push fit onto the centre spindle.
So that's another wreck of a radio working again nicely, its not the smartest of sets, it is just showing its age now rather than the layers of dirt and grime.

The surprising thing is, despite the radio being so dirty it is the only one where it has not had little chips and cracks off the edge of the back.
Mike

[Murphyv310]

These are good sets indeed, mine is an early one and has had only one capacitor replaced, certainly no tin whiskers to worry about with the OC range of transistors.
I'd say the MB60 has just the edge on sensitivity but its a very close run race.

[Refugee]

The cabinet is in much better condition than I have ever seen.
I got a bit more power out of mine by using 9.6 volts worth of Nimh cells and the top of an old disposable PP9.
I have also made a back screw tool out of a nylon potato masher too.

[Terry]

Excellent job, Mike, and that cabinet looks fantastic now that you've cleaned it up - perhaps you should have also posted a 'before' picture for comparison.

All it needs now is the aerial socket and the missing chassis securing screw!

The cabinet uses the same moulding as the MB60 and, back in the day, we were often asked to fit an output socket for connecting to a tape recorder. The indentation where the MB60 mains socket would have been was an ideal place to mount a 3-pin DIN socket.

I think that the very large ferrite rod helped with the sensitivity of these sets, coupled with the unusual aerial arrangement whereby both MW and LW aerial coils are connected in parallel on MW.

[Crackle]

I didnt notice originally but it does look like the handle has been sat on. Still it will have to stay like that as the spring clips are a devil of a job to remove, and I dont fancy pushing it the other way whilst fitted to the case.
Yes I do that a lot, forget to take a photo of before, I get too excited and keen to get it onto the bench to see if it works.  
But it had so much dirt and dust on the front that originally I thought someone had camouflaged it. The fablon sides were black.
I will confess to having a bit of a problem with the dial lettering. The new bottle of Cif spray cleaner we bought for my work room seems to have a paint removing function. When I carefully wiped over the dial with a moistened cloth to my horror it was all red and a lot of the white paint lettering was almost gone. You can just see the now faint lettering at the top of the dial.

Mike

[Murphyv310]

An elementary mistake Mike we all do at some time.
A dial scan would be an idea. Or even your own "repaired" using Photoshop.