[Hammarlund] SP-600 RF Deck (Success)

[Joe Connor]

    Well, guys, I took the RF deck out of my SP-600 and replaced the 20+ caps. Wow, what a difference it made! I thought it was a hot receiver before but now it is much, much better. I found the disassembly to be relatively easy. The reassembly, however, was a real bitch. I used model paint to mark the wires going into the T-1 assembly and that helped a lot. (One tip: don't use similar colors. The wire insulation absorbs the paint and seems to mask the color. Thus, for instance, dark blue and dark green look very similar). Thank you all for the tips you gave me. Without your help, I'd still be trying to get the RF deck out. 
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>    The ceramic disc caps worked nicely. They are so much smaller than the black beauties so there's now a lot of room in the RF deck. The only problem I encountered were a couple of black beauties with extremely long leads, much longer than the leads on the ceramic discs. I did a little snip and clip so that I could maintain lead dress. I also used a lot of heat-shrink tubing on the leads of the new caps. 
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>    I still have one issue: the AVC does not work. It didn't work before, but I was hoping the new caps would solve the problem. No dice. Any ideas on what to check? I'll check the voltages on the AVC tube tomorrow and report back. Maybe that will provide a clue. Until then, I'll be riding the RF gain. 
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>    This is an interesting set. It's a miliary JX-14. In recapping the whole thing, I found only one non-original part. Also, the pins on the RF turret where coated with this black stuff. When I got the RF deck out, I saw that the fingers on the RF deck were full of the same stuff. I wonder if this radio was stored for a long time and that this stuff was some kind of preservative put on to protect it. Also, in checking resistors, I found only three or four that were more than 10% off. I'll bet this set didn't get much use. 
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>    Again, thank you all for your help.
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>                                      Joe Connor