[Johnson] Valiant Chirp suggestions

[Artmouton]

I am finally finding time to work on the CW chirp in my Valiant.
Other than that it works fine with lot of power output.  Also looks great 
with my 75A-4.

I have some older emails on the subject but thought I would ask the group 
for advice.

I plan on trying it with a crystal on CW to see if that would narrow the 
problem down to the VFO area?  Is this worth the trouble?

I was then going to do a full clean of the tube sockets, switch contacts and 
generally check connections, grounds, etc.

I will recheck all tubes - it still has the Mercury Vapor rectifiers - I 
will probably keep them as I love the glow, especially on CW.

After that is it then going to be work on the VFO and the famous 18k 
resistor in the VFO can.  Suggestions have been to mount a 22k 5 w resistor 
outside of the box - not sure how that will work but it will be on the list 
to do.

The old email also talks about grounding the shaft of the plate tuning 
capacitor because of the RF on it, especially on 40 meters.
One suggestion by W8UT was to use motor brushes on the arm with a ground 
connection - it even had a photo
http://www.boatanchors.org//Valiantpix/100_0388.jpg

So, what else is out there.  If I am going to take it down what other 
suggestions.

Tnx & 73, Art K5FNQ