1939 Zenith 7S363 Console Radio Restoration
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- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- This is a rather long and boring photo and video documentary of my full restoration, electrical and cabinet, of a 1939 Zenith model 7S363 console radio. However, it may be of interest to someone who is considering a restoration of a similar model.
If you're simply curious about how good these radios can sound, just skip ahead to the 39:55 mark for an AM broadcast sample, or the 40:45 mark to see how remarkably good these radios can sound playing an external stereo source through a simple modification. To see the MP3 input modification, skip to 47:16. The final video shots were made with an LG G3 smartphone.
I owe many thanks to the authors of the following videos:
• Tube Radio Repair--Com... (quig/quiggle soldering technique);
• Easy How to add MP3 ip... (a simple modification for an MP3 player input); and
• A Look At A NOS 6E5 Ma... (a convincing test of a 6E5 magic eye tube).
Some sources for special parts:
www.tedweber.c... (WX5 Copper Cap rectifier from Weber Vintage Sound Technology);
www.renovatedra... (reproduction knobs and buttons);
radiodaze.com/ (decals, item DCL-ZR4); and
Adams Manufacturing Co. (now closed) for tuning belt #115.
I too have this EXACT radio that day is my grandmother hallway! And I destroyed the buttons as a young girl! How funny. I just began a restoration on it and was thrilled to find you’re video.
Ted, Just picked up a 7S363 this past weekend 9/10/23 for 20 bucks. Cabinet is in great shape just needs refinishing, but the radio is missing buttons, no AC cord, but a full restore of caps and cleaning switches and a new band rubber is in order.
A beautiful restoration! For your first radio restoration I must say you handled it like a pro, very methodical and a stickler for detail. I like it.
Thanks Ted for the great documentation and references of your restore. Very helpful!
Absolutely fantastic!! You sir should be extremely proud of yourself. I have a very similar Zenith that belonged to my Grandparents, then inherited to my mother in 1984. She passed in 2009, and I have it now. My mom told me they listened all day on December 7 1941 about pearl harbor. Its never been touched, and I see crumbling wires on top. But I turn it on about every 4 months and let it run about 10 minutes. It plays very well.
Absalutely gorgeous workmanship Sir. The chassis and tube sheilds ….I will do the same now that I had the pleasure to see your art work
Thanks From Canada
Great job. It sounds beautiful!
Hello Ted. I like to restore valve radios but a project of that size must have been a lot of work a labour of love. You did a great job nicely done. Thanks regards Chris
This is a beautiful restored Console Radio! Zenith's are rare in Canada in the same way that Canadian Marconi Consoles are rare in the US. May everyone who sees this continue to enjoy their radio hobby & history in good health.
Zenith radios are rare in Canada because Canadians are CHEAP and would settle for something mediocre. Marconi radios are more popular in Canada because Guglielmo Marconi was a CONMAN and the radios sounded vanilla, and naturally Canadians flock to like minded people and their products.
BEAUTIFUL JOB!
About 28 years ago I restored and refinished one of these beauties, I had to replace a couple of the selector hooks, and used a polyurethane O-Ring to replace the bad drive belt. I stripped the cabinet and only had to make some minor repair to the veneer. I got new decals, some new push buttons to replace missing or broken ones, I made a major Faux Pas at least in the minds of purists by refinishing the cabinet in Polyurethane. It did take me a long time to rub out the finish but it turned out very nice and has aged well. On the electronics side, the radio functioned weakly being brought on a Variac, with the typical hum from old electrolytic capacitors. I recapped the entire radio, replaced a couple of weak tubes, and aligned it. It really sounded great, and still sounds great to this day, but I think it has probably lost a little sensitivity.
A year later I took on a pretty rough looking Zenith 8S463. I was eagerly looking forward to restoring it . The electronics were very similar to the 7S363 with the addition of double ended audio and an internal antenna touted as the Wave Magnet. The electronics restore went well, but the cabinet was another matter. There was a fair amount of chipped veneer which needed o be dealt with. I was planning to strip the cabinet and do my best to repair the veneer,To make matters worse, but I discovered a lot of the veneer was actually a plastic overlay over plain wood, rather than the carefully matched burled maple and walnut veneer of the 7S363. I ended up scrapping the project and sold the restored chassis back to the guy I brought the radio from.
Nice work! Re mica caps, I'm finding that they are now reaching the point where they also become suspect, so they don't really last forever.
Ted, that is an outstanding restoration!!
Nice job and sounds great 👌
Awesome video my friend. Very helpful for us with this radio.
I agree with Phillip on the restoration of this radio it's to my liking of radios to say what a beautiful job! I will subscribe to your channel today so i can view more!
Nice job. All BCB stations are dx where I live so I like using the more common and less expensive 6E5 because it reacts more sensitively to the stations I receive.
Wow, very nice work, great job with restore it
The component replacement technique, the quibble sounds great. News to me I'll be using it, thanks.
Quigs are an old idea but they were new to me too.
worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Service-&-Sales-IDX/Archive-Radio-Retailing-IDX/IDX/60s/Electronics-Technicians-1965-01-OCR-Page-0015.pdf
Wonderful radio - Great job !!
Well done Ted
Very good restoration. I too restored mine and I love it.
Nice restoration.
See David Tipton's videos for cabinet work! He's the KING of refinishing!! The foil side MATTERS in ALL Tube equipment !!!
Well done, Sir!
I think you did a great job I have two of these same radio's myself that I am going to try fixing now that I am retired you must have already had knowledge of electronics . I have been watching lots of you tube hoping to lean something myself .
Get yourself a new "eye" tube...they are available!
I have the same radio that belonged to my Dad's grandfather until he died and then it went to my grandmother and then to my father. He died and now I have it. It makes a sound now but doesn't work probably a tube bad. It has always been owned by adult people. Has a few scratches on it. It was orgianlly bought to follow the news of the war which my Dad was serving in England. Then after D day to follow the reports nightly given on the BBC.
That's a nice history; glad you still have the radio. Wish mine had a story to tell, maybe like this one from 1968, Night of the Living Dead:
czcams.com/video/H91BxkBXttE/video.html
While resistors in old radios do go up in value, note that in this era most resistors were 20% tolerance, and tube circuits are usually not critical about resistor values. So in most cases many of the resistors could be left as is, and only in the more critical circuits would they need to be replaced. Up to you how original you want to leave the radio.
Very cool! Amazing work bringing that thing back to life. Wonder what the price was on such thing in todays money? Must have been really expensive in 1939!
That was fun..) I have one too. Unrestored...
Another less invasive way to add an aux input is simply buy an inexpensive AM modulator. Some can sound quite good, though never as good as feeding the amplifier directly.
Hi! Any idea where I can get the “caps” ?
Thanks for your time.
Hello I got one just like it but unfortunately the magic eye bulb doesn't come on. Any idea as far as what could be wrong?
Other than a bad tube, I'm not sure. There is a 1 megohm resistor inside the tube socket that often fails. A bit hard to replace but a 1W metal film resistor worked for me. But I don't think that would keep the tube from lighting.
I have this type of radio but needs a restoration and im not educated on this matter. Attempting to sell because im in a tough spot for money.
Hello again! Mine seemed to have shorted in that long bar resistor ( 10:17 ). Candohm Resistor? There is some wax residue (three small drops) on the base of the cabinet. How bad is this now that the loud hum is present? Other than that, I don't see any signs of burnt, melted or tar leaking out of the bottom of the transformer. That long bar resistor says something like "The Muter Co." Chicago USA. with a number 63-984-ET Is this even possible to replace?
I happened to be lucky and my candohm resistor was okay. I recall that no replacement was available at the time and a make-your-own equivalent was the only solution. So I didn't even risk unsoldering any connections there; I simply snipped the connecting wire from anything I was replacing and soldered to the stub. Not sure what to say about the transformer. I guess I would just check AC output voltages. Good luck.
@@saabyurk Hello, I wanted to follow up on my 7s363 in which I had professional radio repair shop find the trouble. Turns out my 7s363 transformer shorted. So a replacement was installed and now is playing nice. Still have the original (NOS) 6X5 tube, I'm thinking it maybe worth replacing with the copper top you've mentioned. Thank you!
I have two of these consoles 7s363 and 8s154. My 7s363 just hums loud now and I'm thinking it needs to be recapped too. They recapped it a while back, but maybe it's possible for them to go bad again? Also, did these originally have "backs" on them from the factory? All the ones I see are fully open.
The originals have open backs. I made a back to keep dust out. I lift it off on the rare occasion I play the radio.
Your hum may be a heater to cathode short in the rectifier tube. If so, that may quickly destroy/overheat the impossible-to-find power transformer. That's why I put a "copper-top" solid state rectifier in mine.
Thank you for the reply. Very good to know. Terrible news if you're correct. I'm not really good at the electronics, so I may have a old time radio restoration take a look. I'm hoping it's not the trans. @@saabyurk
I am doing a 38..cabnet good rest old changing caps and resisters
Hi, Ted
Sir... I am trying to find replacements for the tone and push button parts for my Zenith 7s363. The one I am restoring did not come with the button / push hook mounts. Do you have any idea where I might find replacement boxes like the one you have mounted for your push hook / buttons at 22:37?
I don't even know the correct name for the item, so searching for it has been difficult.
If you're talking about the metal box with coils in the video to the left of the tuning dial, those buttons are for selecting pre-tuned stations. The box to the right of the dial is for tone control. I don't know any source for those except used radios on eBay, etc. But if you're talking about the plastic buttons themselves, I sourced those here:
renovatedradios.com/product.php?product=431
@@saabyurk I bought the replacement buttons, from the same source. Unfortunately, I was referring to the boxes. Ah well, I guess I will have to keep looking
Hello - would it be possible for me to ship you my RCA Victor Antique Console Radio, Model K50, 1939 and have you repair it and ship it back?
Thanks for asking but I am too old and tired and too busy with farm and animal upkeep. I have projects that have been sitting 2 years without finding time to work on them. Best of luck to you. Hey, maybe Bruce Nolte who just posted might do that. :-)
Hey Dave Beam, you might want to try and reach out to Paul Carlson (youtube channel: Mr Carlsons Lab) , he has a soft spot for vintage tube radio's :)
Note: he lives in Canada tho.
Best of luck !!
You were wasting your time testing those old capacitors, those are almost ALWAYS bad
👍👍😎
Hello
I have the same radio. Where did you source the capacitors from?
Having a hard time finding some of them.
Thank you
Took me awhile to find this but I think these were my sources:
(add dot com to each)
1. justradio in Niagara Falls specializes in caps for tube radios
2. mouser (look under passive components)
3. digikey
4. mcmaster
Good luck!
@@saabyurk Thank you so much.
Loved your restoration!
Take care
Ernie
Hi Ted, thanks again. I got the radio working! Would you be to help me with your 6e5 -6u5 mod? Have questions about your schematic.
I have the 6e5 tuning eye replacement.
Thanks
Ernie
@@skywarn458 Not sure if I can or not; I can try. Send questions to ted -at- gtyurkon -dot- com
Where would I look to find the model number?
All I was able to find on my ~VERY SIMILAR~ looking console was a small metal plate/plaque
“MADE IN U.S.A. BY
ZENITH
RADIO CORP
R677373”
I can't recall finding it in print anywhere. Mine came with the original owner manual which identified the chassis as 5714. From the schematic for chassis 5714, I found the following table:
Speaker --- Model
49-179-8" 7s323
49-251-10" 7s342
49-251-10" 7s343
49-208-10" 7s363
49-249-12" 7s366
49-266-12" 7s364
My speaker is 10" and has 49U208 printed on the housing. Everything I have found matches 7s363 also.
You might look at this: www.radiomuseum.org/r/zenith_7s363_7_s_363_ch5714.html
I hope someone else has better info.
@@saabyurk
Well that helps me a lot actually.
It sounds like what I found on the chassis is a serial number and not the model number
I’ve emailed the site and I’m hoping that they have enough knowledge to recognize the product range that could have that serial number
...like “oh, 1941-1943 was the R-serial numbers” or something along those lines
I sent them a picture of the front and the plaque, so here’s hoping 🤞
But yeah, either way I think that site will be very very useful as soon as I learn more about the console itself
@@TheMulToyVerse Forgot to mention, my serial number is R926677. Your radio is probably older than mine.
What are the dimensions of this model?
Approximately 26" wide, 41-1/2" tall, 15" deep, ledge at center of dial 32-1/2" high, dial bezel 8" dia.
Please Mr.Ted, is it for sale
Sorry, no. Glad you like it.
@@saabyurk please Mr. Ted I want you opinion as an expert, what is the to 2 or 3 old radio cabinet brand in u s a .
It is beautiful Ted! I have a 1938 G.E. G-71 table top model. It has the same GF5 and GF6 tubes in the audio output section. The schematic between my (cheaper?) GE and your Zenith are very close.
It is chinese resistors and capacitors?
Most likely. I bought most on Mouser based on specs and didn't check country of origin.
@@saabyurk thanks
TED YURKON WHAT A KOOL ZENITH 25363 CONSOL RADIO RECIVER I HaVE A SHORWAV RADIO REIVER The BANDS R MEDiM WAV AND FM AIR AND SBS. WHEN YOU HAV TIME TEX ME
TEX ME
I has SHORTWAV radio with am long wave and FM Air band ssb band Eton. Elite executive tex me
Loose the religious CRAP!!!
Without before pictures for all we know you could have bought it in meant condition at a thrift store. We might all be being had.
Idiot. And the word is MINT. not Meant. Although I knew what you MEANT.
Zenith radios are rare in Canada because Canadians are CHEAP and would settle for something mediocre. Marconi radios are more popular in Canada because Guglielmo Marconi was a CONMAN and the radios sounded vanilla, and naturally Canadians flock to like minded people and their products.