1953 Dodge - What have I got into

[tanda62]

Wow that is so cool.  AM radio with push button presets - what a memory pushing those buttons looking for the right song while parking...

[peteandvanessa]

Here's the radio at half volume on a test drive. Some may doubt that these old tube radios aren't loud enough, but they are surprisingly loud, more than enough in a noisy cab.

I have a single 5 1/4 inch, 4 ohm speaker in the dash.

So cool to tune the dial and find some music. ?

 

 

Edited October 9, 2019 by peteandvanessa

[Frank Elder]

Devo and Deadpool......now there is a combo....lol.

[peteandvanessa]

Ordered this bad boy today. 

A Bluetooth receiver and decoder. The decoded audio signal can then be sent to the tube amplifier then out to the speaker.

Getting closer to streaming music from my phone to the tube radio ?

[peteandvanessa]

The Bluetooth Prototype is finished

 

 

[minicooper]

You got me curious about the radio hiding under the dash in my ‘52, that I’ve ignored. I pulled it out this afternoon and opened it up to have a look. It’s surprisingly in good shape, except for the the remote knob and dial unit. It was definitely an owner installed job - the unit is a Motorola 405, 47-48 and was mounted on the firewall using lag bolts and square nuts as spacers. I’m curious about your bluetooth receiver - is it 6-volt? 

 

Roland

Chattahoochee Hills Ga

[peteandvanessa]

Yes the Bluetooth module is 6 volts( but it can handle 5-35 volts). It's very easy to integrate with the radio with a switch a few wires and a couple of resistors. I'm powering the Bluetooth off a USB battery because my truck is positive ground. I need to check the radio to get a 6 volt source so I don't have to use the USB battery but it's not a major issue. On your radio, check the capacitors, if they are the old brown paper looking capacitors with wax on, you can replaced them easily. The radios are pretty simple to work on. Is your radio working?

[minicooper]

Thanks! I haven't tested the radio yet, I was planning on bench testing it today... My truck is 6 volt positive ground as well. If I can get it working, I was going to add a second speaker to the speaker grill that's already on the dash. I like the idea of adding the bluetooth unit and adding an iPad mini mounted flat to the left of the steering wheel. Would be nice to power and send audio to a USB port directly to the radio head unit.

[peteandvanessa]

That sounds like a great project. If you haven't got a set yet, search for the schematics for your radio, that really helps to troubleshoot. But generally these radios are pretty simple and usually its just a case of replacing a few capacitors, maybe a few resistors and checking that the vibrator works.

[peteandvanessa]

Today's task was to install the Bluetooth module into the Tube radio, hide all the wires and get it all working.

Mission accomplished ?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HgQvee6w0w

 

Edited October 13, 2019 by peteandvanessa

[Tony WestOZ]

On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 6:29 AM, peteandvanessa said:

Today's task was to install the Bluetooth module into the Tube radio, hide all the wires and get it all working.

Mission accomplished ?

 

 

After reading this great bit of work you have done with the radio and the add on`s I was inspired to go and drag mine out of the garage.

I had thought with the experience I had gained over the last couple of years building some DIY pre amps and amps I could dive right in and fix this.

 

 

This is Australian made 1954 Ferris Super Seven model 93. Top of the line at the time and close enough to period for my 53 Australian Dodge.

 

Took off the front panel, Ok there are some valves a tuner thingy and some other bits

 

 

Then I rolled it over and took off the back panel. I cannot say what I thought but the inspiration started to seep out.

 

 

All is not lost yet but I am going to have to sit back, study and learn a bit more before I dive in.

 

Tony

[peteandvanessa]

Hi Tony, keep at it, it's not that hard.

 

When you connect the power supply to it, are you getting anything. You should hear the buzzing from the vibrator (I think you have a mechanical vibrator, I think it's the V4012 part in the silver can on the left hand side in your second pic).

Once you have that working, then you can start replacing the caps in the radio. You'll need schematic of your radio from the web somewhere. See all the wax caps in your pics, you need to remove all of those with modern equivalents, the modern ones are much much smaller and they are easy to replace.

I'll try and help with the debugging from here, I've now fixed two radios and two power supplies, so it's not that hard to do, but you do need some basic soldering skills and a schematic.

Edited October 15, 2019 by peteandvanessa

[Radarsonwheels]

I used to enjoy watching the ‘guitarologist’ on youtube he has a lot of tube amp repair videos on there. Mostly fixing bad connections, replacing caps & resistors. I never dove in that deep but I enjoyed learning about them. 

[Tony WestOZ]

Well powered it up today and there was some success. The three light bulbs worked.

The vibrator V4012 you mention I assume is vibrating as it is making a very loud humming noise. This would have to be way to loud for normal use and it would drive me crazy with that going on.

Three of the valves have a glow to them the other four are not showing anything.

I did find a schematic and a parts list with a bit of a description. There is a four pin plug on the side that I can plug in a microphone or gramophone pickup or the optional short wave convertor or even electric shaver.  What a beast.

There was nothing coming out of the speaker, not even a crackle but the light at the end of the tunnel did get a bit brighter so we shall push on.

 

Tony

 

[peteandvanessa]

4 hours ago, Tony WestOZ said:

Well powered it up today and there was some success. The three light bulbs worked.

Excellent progress

4 hours ago, Tony WestOZ said:

The vibrator V4012 you mention I assume is vibrating as it is making a very loud humming noise. This would have to be way to loud for normal use and it would drive me crazy with that going on.

They do make a bit of a noise, however, when the Valves warm up, the noise does go a little quieter (but you can still hear it)

4 hours ago, Tony WestOZ said:

Three of the valves have a glow to them the other four are not showing anything.

Sounds like either the valves heaters have stopped working or the voltage to the valve heaters isn't working. All valves must glow, the valves have little heaters in the bottom which glow when they are working. Look on the circuit diagram for the pin outs on the valves, usually, the heaters are lower voltage (I'd guess maybe 6 volts or 12 volts DC depending on the valve.

If that voltage is present on the valve, then the valves are defective

4 hours ago, Tony WestOZ said:

I did find a schematic and a parts list with a bit of a description. There is a four pin plug on the side that I can plug in a microphone or gramophone pickup or the optional short wave convertor or even electric shaver.  What a beast.

There was nothing coming out of the speaker, not even a crackle but the light at the end of the tunnel did get a bit brighter so we shall push on.

Have a look at the diagram, which valves aren't glowing, if it's the amplifier valves that's why you aren't getting any sound.

4 hours ago, Tony WestOZ said:

 

Tony

 

 

[peteandvanessa]

Here's a pic of what a valve heater should look like, it's the orange glow (there's two glowing in the pic below), if there's no glow at all, then the valve won't work

[Tony WestOZ]

Well between sandblasting parts for my brother I spent some time down loading valve specs from the net.

I need to get the correct pin numbers. Some readings I got last night did not match up. One thing I have found is that I don`t have high voltage anywhere.   

 

 

Lots of head scratching to be done yet.

Though I remember saying that when I was building a few of these.

 

 

More studying to be done.

 

Tony

[tom'sB2B]

On 10/13/2019 at 3:29 PM, peteandvanessa said:

Today's task was to install the Bluetooth module into the Tube radio, hide all the wires and get it all working.

Mission accomplished ?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HgQvee6w0w

 

Can you elaborate on how you installed the module and from whom you purchased it from? I'm wondering too if it will work on a Motorola 802? Thank you.

[peteandvanessa]

14 hours ago, tom'sB2B said:

Can you elaborate on how you installed the module and from whom you purchased it from? I'm wondering too if it will work on a Motorola 802? Thank you.

Sure thing.

 

The module came from Amazon, I know they are out of stock of the module I used, but most Bluetooth module receivers will work.

The one I used has a 5-35 voltage input range, so that's perfect for our trucks.

Now the wrinkle in my truck is that I'm 6 volt positive ground, so you can't simply pick up the power direct from the truck wiring, but fortunately most Bluetooth modules can be powered off a micro USB connection.

This completely isolates the amplifier positive ground to the Bluetooth module negative ground.

 

What I did was to get a small rechargeable USB stick, it doesn't need to be very big since the Bluetooth module only takes about 35 milliamp, so even a small USB battery stick can power it for a couple of weeks.

So you get a USB cable, plug it into the module via a USB battery stick, that powers the Bluetooth module.

 

Then you take the module and solder three wires onto the module (this is going to be the audio feed to the radio). One wire is left channel, one right channel and the last is the ground wire.

The radios are mono, so you need to combine the left and right channel from the Bluetooth into a single feed to the radio, that's done with a couple of 1k resistors. (see diagram), then you find the input into the volume control input, desolder the radio input wire and add in a two way switch, one side of the input to the switch will come from the radio signal, the other side will be the combined  left and right signal from the bluetooth module. So you can switch between the two inputs.

 

Find a small project box (I used a small project that I had lying around), mount the bluetooth module in the box, the micro USB cable goes to the USB battery stick, the audio cable goes into the radio. Solder it up, then I mounted the project box to the side of the radio via velcro.

 

Install the radio and then test it. 

[peteandvanessa]

Here's the circuit diagram for the radio mod. Really the only mod to the radio is the two 1k ohm resistors into the volume pot and desoldering the radio antenna input and routing it through a two way switch. The 10k ohm resistor to ground was suggested in another forum, but i didn't need it in the end. 

 

[Tony WestOZ]

Wooo Hoooo IT WORKS 

and I have to say a big thankyou for the inspiration to have a go at this radio.

I went through and changed out the old paper capacitors for new film type (some not the correct values as I cannot get them locally) removed the cover from the vibrator cleaned and reassembled it. You can hardly hear it now with no volume.

There is still a lot to be done. Hopefully a better aerial than the screwdriver I have stuck in there now will clean up some of the static. A lot of wires still to be replaced. I replaced a few badly rotted ones on the way but I did not want to get to carried away if it did not work. 

I have had 3 or 4 hours listening to it while cleaning the head and cables with a bit of lube being applied where required. It all turns a lot smoother now.

I am getting about 6 or 7 channels at the moment from reasonably clear to some real fuzzy ones but its about 2 am here so we will see how we go during the daylight hours.

Its going to be a while before I can go Bluetooth, wifi or what ever it is, but I am going to try to cut in the wires and switch to get it ready. Will test it by taking feed from the computer if I can.

 

Thanks again all

Tony