28-06-2021, 01:40 PM
Help!. I need help from you boffins before I blow myself up. I've bought a French Clarville Tenor 57, very roughed up. Now bare with me, I'm a 71 year old novice and will try anything so here goes. I changed the plug fuse to a 1 amp, plugged it into a home made lamp limiter (100w bulb) then into a RCD, noted the transformer was set to 220v so moved the link to 240v (?), powered up. Result= dial lights lit, limiter bulb lit then dipped to nothing, as valves warmed bulb rose to about 25%. No sound. So pulled out chassis and gave a spring clean, replaced the 6BA6 valve which looked a bit iffy (too technical?), powered up. Result= dial lights lit, limiter bulb stays dark when valves warm up and low & behold A STATION!. Feeling quite pleased with myself then- MAGIC SMOKE!. Turned off and had a cuppa while my heart slowed down. Smoke came from under chassis on transformer side, no obvious burning but oily deposit on cable loom maybe residue from my cleaning? (contact cleaner, wd40, grease on dial mechanism etc). So with heart pills by my side I reconnected. Result= dial lights lit, valves warm up, limiter bulb dark, no sound. Then, TICK (an electrical 'tick') at the same time dial lights dim and limiter bulb glows 25%, then everything recovers until another 'tick' 15 seconds later, it then repeats this cycle. The 'tick' seems to come from the tuning side and not the business end of the chassis, I'm not brave enough to poke around and probably wouldn't know what I was poking, if I do I will de-do the cap's. Any ideas chaps (and chapesses).