Cross-posted from the Rain City Audio Repair Blog:

This Philco 42-365 came to the shop in need of major repairs. It was missing its dial string, lamps, and the power transformer had melted down due to a failure in the main electrolytic capacitors.

It’s melted and run everywhere, and left quite a bit of smoke residue. Fortunately, the power transformer on this model was also used on a few models spanning several years, so it was fairly readily available.

Transformer leads back then weren’t always labeled with standard conventions, so it’s always important to test them.

The replacement has a bit of surface rust but otherwise works perfectly.

The dial cord on this model is two separate strings wrapped around 5 pulleys, but it went back together okay.

It all went back together! The dial scale on this model is attached to the cabinet, and the owner brought the chassis and speaker alone, so I aligned the IFs but wasn’t able to align the dial tracking.

Back in its cabinet, though, it looks great!

Rain City Audio can fix your vintage radio, too.