What I find here, & it may well be similar there? During WWII, WD had a bad habit of scarpering of with tubes, or they got redirected. We had one factory making mainly RCA tubes and the other one was Philips. So what happened was that those manufacturers still making domestic radios, as many had gone to war production and for some time after the war, manufactured runs with what was available, occurred. Some sets had been modified to take Philips tubes others different speakers: And there were circuit mods. One brand here mentioned elsewhere has over 26 versions all in the same case moulding. You go to a schematic to try and identify it in the full knowledge that it may not exist.

Well a well known Antique Radio restorer in the next town over gave me a "junk" chassis of a Philco 37-640 and it looks like it was never messed with so I hope that will do the trick as most of what I see in the under side is the same. Lots of the tuning and fine adjusting screws are different and the chassis does not have the rectifier tube in the transformer but other than that all the same.

Realisation: If the Junk chassis is known, it has not been messed with, it has a schematic and fits the cabinet you have, do asses if it may well be a better and a more cost effective exercise to restore it. Making sure that you have photos.

Am I to assume the rectifier tube is missing and its still transformer? That can be reverse engineered by working out the socket & pinouts. E.g. If its 5Y3 it will have a dedicated filament winding pins 2&8; Plates 4&6. If its perhaps 6X5 it may still get a dedicated winding heaters will be 2&7; plates 3&5 and positive comes off of pin 8.

Rather than act impulsively, step back & asses the new situation.

Marc

I have always been able to reach the caps with long snips and get new ones in from the "bottom" . One is a filter can and I think there are two paper caps down there, one you can skip if needed its a cathode bypass with just 6 v on it and its a 200v rated cap, so a little leakage will never be noted,, but the other is a B+ bypass as I recall and you can reach that. The filter cap I tie in up above where the wire comes and remove the other wire as I recall that goes down to the old can.
So, less is more here if you can see how to do it.

What is handy for things built like English cars where they delight in taking a motor; then building the car around it... are hemostats.

These make heatsinks; A plier for extracting hot wires; A wire plier for holding solder, or the component whilst you solder it; Twist wire onto a node; And two can manoeuvre stuff into places you thought impossible. Love em….do try.

RB type caps & green cap style caps (Non axial like those "orange drops") can be fabulous for mounting on a socket, or switch.

Marc

Also, Menards sells a long reach snipper that is great. small head, long reach. ... about $6 as I recall and invaluable.
Mark Oppat

Well for every step forward I seem to be taking at least three steps backward two taps broke off the Long 11 tap terminal strip so I have to replace it. So much fun! Unsoldering and labeling all the wires and resistors. Oh joy. And I haven't even gotten to the section with the "mystery" wire yet.

Just add a small terminal strip to replace what broke off....


The schematic will answer this.......BUT: Did you trace enough wiring to confirm that you have a 630 and not a 620?

I seem to have a 37-630, the other chassis that I was give seams to be a 37-640 even though it has an ink stamp stating it also is a 37-630. There are LOTS of differences between the two, no tube socket on top of the power transformer, so when I compare the two, and I notices that the RF 6K7 tube pin 3 the plate does not have a wire attached! it was broken clean off at the pin so I am thinking that this mystery wire must go to the 6K7 pin 3 as the wire was originally the proper length to go there. In the photo that shows the wire coming off the band switch, the next point to it goes to the variable capacitor, I could not find that on the schematic, and the whole C1 D1 thing just made me more confused.

The rectifier tube placement is not a significant difference.

Philco made tabletop radios and console radios that were all named 37-630 etc. The model number for the tabletop was 37-630T, and the console version was a 37-630X. The chassis for the tabletop, having to fit in a smaller cabinet (with less headroom), had the rectifier mounted on the chassis next to the power transformer. The console version had the rectifier mounted on top of the power transformer. In all other respects the chassis were the same.

Can we get some pictures of the entire top and under side of the chassis? If you can get the top picture from the rear, so that the view is unobstructed by the dial face, that would help.

Well progressing steadily, I hope to power up in a day or so....hopefully with out needing the fire extinguisher.

Does the 37-620 have a tuning indicator? I am pretty sure the 37-630 does.

Pin 3 of a 6K7 is extremely significant: Its the plate. If its in the IF train? It will be in the primary circuit of an IF can. If 6K7 does not find a few hundred volts its not going to run.

Marc

Yes, it has a shadow meter. I put the center section back in and have all but 3 wires left to go.

Well I powered it up today for the first time, first with no rectifier, then with the rectifier kept to about 100 volts max. I noticed I only had filament lights on the 5Y4 and the 6F6 but not the other tubes. Strange thing is the dial light and the shadow meter light were lit. Key the twilight zone music.

What does that mean?
If you are starting up with a Variac, you have to get up to at least 50% input voltage before anything will work. Once the B+ comes up, it should be more than 100 volts.
Give some more detail on what you are doing? eg do you start up with a Variac AND an ammeter on the input line?
continuously monitor B+ during startup?

Sorry, I kept my variac to only 50 volts ac at first, dim dial lights, no smoke no fire so I increased the variac to 100 volts. I did get like 185 DC on all three of the electrolytic s. When I saw no other tubes lit up I turned it off in order to trace out some wires.

And the result of tracing those wires was???

Hello all,

Yes, it's time to re attack the 630 and go by the schematic....So what do you do when there are major differences in the schematic?? For example item #54 from the parts list shows a .01 capacitor going to the 490,000 and one Meg resistors on the long terminals strip and to ground. Ok, so the parts list, and the drawing shows a .01 cap BUT the line drawing of the schematic shows a .1 capacitor as #54. So which one is right? the .1 or the .01? and that is not the only major difference, for example there was another difference with a capacitor where a .1 and a .01 as well as a major difference in a resistor value.

I know Philco was famous for running changes and I was given a "junk" philco 640 from a radio repairman in Eugen, but the chassis was marked 37-630.

Please describe things like this with reference to the schematic----we can't see the "long terminal strip"

What schematic are you using?

One easy answer:
There are 3 ways to wire a radio:
--as found
--per the schematic
--so it works
Sometimes, all 3 are the same.......