Pye P74

[Mike Watterson]

Perhaps this is an Irish model. Put in an Irish attic over 40 years ago.
It's like a Pye P76F in appearance https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pye_p76fp_76.html but has no frame aerial. PE77 may be a similar chassis.
LW, MW and six SW bands.
Metal speaker grill which is common on the Irish versions.
The mains transformer primary and audio transformer primary both have reasonable Ohms readings so I agreed to "get radio working". Cleaning up the case a bit will be the owner's job. It was his grandfather's set.

[Mike Watterson]

There is a Pye P76 as well as P76F.
However the P76 has only 4 SW bands. Otherwise it might be similar.

Issues so far:
No on/off. Open circuit. Wiggling, oil and cleaner brought one pole back to operation.
The pilot bulbs burnt out. They were very bright. Voltage is 6.28V AC and the bulbs marked Ever Ready 6.2V. I suspect for a torch. Torch bulbs traditionally over driven and less than 1000 hrs life and battery end point is close to 3.6V, or 4V for radios using 6V batteries. Real 6.3V pilot bulbs are maybe 5000 or 10,000 hours and really 7V, much more orange.

Replaced LOADs of horrible Hunts. One 0.5uF had partially melted. Only the three on tone switch were close to awkward.

Very loud hum yet the main 32+32 uF electrolytic taking no current even at 60V. Likely dried out. Gunge sticking out of bottom middle. It's an EZ40 rectifier so the 50+50 I have will do. It's screw mount with a big washer-tag and plastic nut, but fits existing hole.
Also replaced EL41's cathode capacitor. A Hunts.
Now no hum. SW is working with 2m wire. Too much noise on LW. MW was working after dark (home made loop aerial).
The EM34 is very dim but clearly working if lights are out or hand cupped around it. I told owner it was cosmetic and likely dead. Even the NOS Soviet ones are short lived.

I've replaced the very short 2-core flex with three core, earthed it and put neutral direct to transformer. Disconnected the rather unsafe voltage selector which isn't needed here.

The tuning cap mounts have twisted with age putting the drive cord at risk. I moved the drum out a little on the shaft to help. I'll look later to see can anything be done, like new rubber mounts or replace rubber with glue-gun hot melt.