Early VT-40 restore

[Six]

Hello all,

I'm working on an old VT-40 that's been in the family for 25+ years. Never was used a lot, but about looks like its previous life was in a bar or something. Back in the days, this thing was crazy loud. Or at least that's how I remember it. Think everyone knows the opening scene from Back to the Future, where Marty plugs into that huge speaker. That's exactly how it felt when I would get left home alone, and boredom kicked in.

Anyhow, onto the actual reason for my babbling. I first plugged this thing in some months ago, but I don't remember it doing much. Have recently started getting back into guitar, and decided to refresh my memory on what happens when plugged in. I could hear a little guitar, but the hum noise was off the wall. It got turned off real quick. Also in those months since I first tried, I studied into repairing old tube amps, and made myself familiar with my VT-40 schematics.

From the date info online, this seems to be made between 68-72. The badge is metal, and the panel graphics are blue. I don't know how to decipher pot codes though. There have been a couple differences in the schematics and actual things in the amplifier. I see fliptops mentions some early models have a 100uf/100v cap in the bias, but C14 on mine was a 80uf/100v. Which actually measured something like 100pf, very bad shape. One end was exploding. This 80uf/100v cap sure looked original to me.

The C16 can also had one of its sections bypassed, with a 30uf/600V log. The log was out of spec, but the 40uf/40uf/40uf can actually measured to be decent. So no clue what was going on there. I could see where the lead had been removed from the can, this didn't look original.

I went ahead and started pulling cans, to replace with individual caps. I really don't dig huge cap cans in the way, and originality means nothing to me. I'll never sell it anyhow. Thought I was going to use Sprague's, but $200 on caps is a bit nutty. Probably get some F&T's for the large filters, and put Sprague on the boards.

The power board has some dark areas, don't really like the look of that, but this thing also seems to have a good coating of tar all over the insides. Might be contributing to some of the darkness. Started doing some cleaning with qtips and alcohol.

Think I have most of it sorted, but welcome to any pointers or tips on any more things I should check/replace while inside. lifted a couple other caps around C14, and one of the resistors near the dark area, they didnt read far off, but I also could have just been checking the wrong one, when one beside may be terrible.


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[Six]

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