How to repair trace Tube guitar amp Noise Valco Chicago 51 by D-lab 

Thanks Terry, I really appreciate your videos. It's great to see a really experienced​ tech at work.

Can't stop watching your vids, Terry!

YAYYY! Special Guest Appearance by the "Big Ol' SNOZZERAMUS" Ungar! My day is now complete.

Terry, not only brass slot car chassis (we had a track in Jr. High!), but that wattage is often used in stained glass work to solder the lead came (framing) together.

I have used Deoxit on tube pins and it worked for me. I also acquire some dentist files from my last trip to the dentist for cleaning small pins sockets on connectors and those work great too.

Always enjoy your video's Terry. Congrats on the 8K too! That's an interesting 560K resistor you're pointing too at around 4:14 ;^)

Nice job Terry. I was surprised to see those filament wires so close to the chassis but in 1951 they didn't know better......Nice job tracing that back. It is not about how you fix it, it is about wanting to fix it... you rocked it brother. Regards, Ron

I strive to learn something new every day. You know your craft extremely well and I feel you improved the amp overall - it sounds great. I experience the same thing in my job, industrial electrician/maint tech. Sometimes we aren’t meant to go to what we learned on past problems immediately. I feel we subconsciously know when extra repairs are needed and our brain steers us around to systematically improve the end result. Just my opinion and personal experience. Great job, I wish I knew half of what you know and I respect your troubleshooting skills. I learn alot by watching your videos on tube amps.

I do like watchin these a lot. Electronics started as a hobby n became my career n guitar is another hobby of mine.

I recently found your channel and love each and every video - I spend my days troubleshooting a completely different type of electronic gremlins so I really appreciate your approach and thoroughness. Love seeing these old classics working as good or better than new.

Thanks again Terry, as always informative and inspiring. much appreciated!

Thank you for the shared experience. Many take the attitude of "I'll tell you but then I have to kill you!" I'm an untrained hobbyist so I try to glean knowledge and your videos are great... entertaining also.

Heck yeah I wanna see more of these type videos. Dig your channel. Dig your style. It's a form of relaxation to watch your vids. I wish I has an old amp to be featured on your program.(actually I do..but it isn't worth the shipping or the bother..it's an old Vox Cambridge, I'm pretty sure it's solid state. It's all wrapped around the axle! Junk.) Good licks there Tony! You guys keep 'em coming.

I like the old amplifiers Gibson, Fender, Harmony,and Valco!!!

love these little tube amps. love to see the inside of a Alamo Capri

According to uncle Doug Chicago 51 was a delivery code, like a zip code.

Thank you for your help. I am trying to learn this stuff. Hard on an old man's brain!!!!!

Nice amp. That mod-10 worked great.

Very interesting video. Always informative.

You're doin' all the right stuff,Terry.Thanks!

That amp sounds really nice

I like those Cinch-style sockets. Thesis Audio Service here sells them for around $3-4 apiece. They're also found in a lot of old tube-type HP gear.

Sometimes you win with little effort, sometimes the job makes you work for it.

Great video Terry.

More great shared knowledge - Thank you.

Keep those vids coming....

I wish I had one of these tubesters.

Hey Terry, I have an amp that I would like you to fix and maybe do a video on and was wondering if you can send me details of what I need to do to make it happen. Thanks so much, I've learned so much and look forward to videos to come.

Hi Terry! I really appreciate the work you put in to producing your videos, I have learned a lot. Could you tell me the model of Ungar you use? Thanks! Aaron

I use a 400 watt sears Soldering gun. It'll solder anything Including 12 or 10 Guage wire into auto Battery connections It will handle a chassis Grounding stud or a can cap mount grounding tabs to the chassis. Hyah hyah Hyah hyah hyah yak yak yak yak yak. I used to watch the goul On a tv station from Detroit when I was 7 Yrs old I grew up in Trenton on the river Mi. About 10 miles South of Detroit off of I. 75 Have fun. Dwight.

Nice!

Good to see you soldering those grounding-rivets to the chassis; the metal "relaxes", and oxidizes (sometimes the rivets and metal mounting tabs turn a greenish or yellowish white), and the rivet holes have paint in them, so.....and you should also buff or sand off some paint so that the solder bonds well to the chassis. I did NOT however, see you unbolt the input jacks and pots and any other components that make a mechanical chassis ground and scrape or sand the paint off the back side of the chassis before reinstalling those parts. .

Actually, the "fork-split" style of tube-socket contact has very high contact pressure and tends to wipe the oxidation off the pins when the tube is inserted. You might see them actually burnish a pair of clean lines on the tube pins! Clean and retension them ---- a dental pick or tiny jeweler's screwdriver works well for retensioning ---- and they're usually fine!

Great job, Terry, as always! Just a couple of questions: 1) would a treatment with Deoxit perhaps have saved you the trouble of replacing that socket? 2) I saw one original-looking paper cap still in there. Why didn’t you replace that one? I’m not being critical, I really do want to know. Now I’ll watch part 1. ;-)

Thanks for the great video. I have this exact model on my bench currently with an intermittent low volume problem. I suspect the output transformer. Have you had experience in retrofitting a new OT in one of these old Valcos? Thanks

I really enjoyed watching this. Can you tell me approximately what the owner ended up spending to get this done?

I don't think any "mistakes" were made in this video. It's a process.

I don 't have a snozoramus to get some heat..I use a butane powered iron and gives me 130 watt op power.

do you think in some cases a Welding Torch Tip cleaner would help with cleaning the tube socket ?

Bizarre that you would have 3 i/p jacks with no resistor isolation. That would essentially tie the impedance of 3 guitars or a guitar and some other device of a different impedence together causing an effect on frequency response. At least Leo Fender's amps had some i/p isolation.

Mikko from Finland hi. What is name that big solder iron? So i can search same kind to ebay.

I have the exact same amp and need to replace the torn speaker. It is the same original speaker that you started off with. 10" 4 ohm? Anything special I need to do or do I cut the old wires and use them for the new speaker?

Didn't the original speaker have the output transformer built into it? How do you get around that? Forget my question, should have watched more than 10 seconds before asking it lol.

My old amp weighs a lot (Maybe 80 lb.s). How cold I ship it safely and economically?

anybody know the dimensions for this amp? i.e. height, width and depth?

Not Eli But Young Tel got by this time! ha ha!

Chicago 51 is and address not model

Thanks 👍👍👍