Well after spending weeks on building and fault finding it is heading for the bin.
I cannot find a compatible set of oscillator and Aerial coils. The only way I can get reasonable volume out of this is with my finger on the hex grid of the 6J8G. This is completely different from rebuilding a commercial brand receiver . These came out 60 odd years ago as a kit of parts . The only bits I could salvage were the case, chassie , 2 valve bases , the power transformer and the two IF cans . All else was either missing or dud. If you are rebuilding a known brand old radio and need bits there are plenty of old bits available out there .
The only way I can fix this is if someone has one with the oscillator and Arial coils still good and wants to sell it to me. I will keep an eye on eBay . I got the oscillator running however I could not match a suitable Arial coil, some were unstable others did not work at all . The one in there at the moment the output is too low.
Regards Jim

I should have added the experience was worth wile. I gained a lot of knowledge fault finding front end faults thank you Marc and Fred .
Not only that I managed my best ever speaker repair again thank you Marc Fed and Ian . There are so many experienced and talanted people on this forum willing to share their knowledge . I won't be throwing it in the bin Although I will have. to shelve the project until I can find another wrecked little general. Thank you to all that have helped me with this. It will be continued.
Kind Regards Jim

Hi Jimb,
Yep you learn a lot through these things.
There is one final option.
Send it to me and i'll have a tinker with it.

You are correct, what it needs is coils that have the inductance values to track 455Kc apart.
Having been through the process in forcing a pair of coils to work from scratch, I am one step ahead of you.
If you are not lucky enough to find coils consider the final option.

Cheers, Fred.

Hi Fred.
That is very kind of you I will keep it in mind.
I am thinking of trying the wave channge coil assembly back in the coils did not look very good and it took up a lot of room.and I could not figure out the connections however I have more knowledge now to re visit it.
Kind Regards. Jim

Little Generals do pop up on Ebay now and then and most aren't working, which means they are a possible source for spares.

One sold in a job-lot of 14 radios last week and I was annoyed to have missed out on it but that's how it is sometimes.

The Little General was said to be Australia's most popular kit radio of all time.

You do not really need coils from a little general. Basically they just have to be a matched set preferably coils & gang and suited to 6J8 .

I say that as Astor JJ is a classic example of the band being compressed, if you use 6J8 instead of 6A8. And the right IF frequency some will adjust a bit either way. On that, most IF cans (not all) have primary & secondary trimmers or slugs, did you adjust both?

Marc

Thank you all for your comments . Yes Marc I did the primary's and secondary's . I have just tried out that wave change switch cannot get it to work.
I have exhausted my stock of coils .
Regards Jim

Under the heading wise before the event, if you are going to remove coils and a gang. Do note which part of the gang is which. If there is a flylead, leave it as that is likely the one for the signal grid.

I normally use colour to mark off primary & secondary of coils dots, double dots when you run out of colour. Photos are always handy to show where it was before the senior moment, like you forgot to put a paint / texta dot on the node (and which was one was that?).

Radio, switch, or both. Where there is a SW coil they may be in series & switching is between top & centre.

Marc

Well what can I say. I reinstalled the evil looking wave change switch , doing my level best to figure out the wiring and it is as dead as a maggot. I then sat down down with a multimeter and I am pretty convinced it is absolutely stuffed it certainly looks it. Any to reinstall this horrible beast I had to remove all the wiring and front end coils. After the fruitless exercise I decided I did not want to leave it in a state of disrepair. So I reinstalled the coils I had the most success with, tidying up all the dog's breakfast of wiring changes that occurred with all the coil changes and coil mountings I had to make. The result a much improved performance I now have a comfortable listing level.
I am now pretty happy with the result.
Still got other stuff to do with the case and dial ,the dial will not look to great because the tuning dial is now 13 mm to the left from where it should be . But hey it is now working quite well.
Thanks again for every ones input I will post some pics down the track.
Kind Regards
Jim

I have a few wafer switches around, these often lose the detent balls, which are replaceable. That can cause the rotor to hit the jaws instead of passing through them and excessive force sees them broken. The one on the tone switch on the HMV on the bench has had that happen & someone has tried to wire around the issue and made a total balls up of it & I have as its not RF replaced it with a rotary one with two sets of switches set for four positions (I think)

One of the things that I forgot to mention was, at the time it came about, places like RCS & others sold radio bits to make such things & Aegis did RF stuff, so getting a coil set was comparatively easy.

Marc

Hi Marc.
Yea! Tried to ring them no answer (LOL) you would think someone would be there still, it was only 1946.
In regards to the wave change switch and most other bits in this radio , they were just that. Bits with nothing attached to them . Someone had attached some labels on the wave change switch from what I Could work out some were not relevant. There is physical,damage to one coil assembly. Now I have it tidied up it is actually working with adequate volume for my needs so I am very happy about that.
Fred has very kindly offered to have a look at the wave change switch for me. If it can be sorted I will reinstall it, however it looks terminal to me. So I now have a working little general still have to try and do something with the dial the spindle now sits 13 mm from its centre position , I did get the height of the replacement gang right with spacers but there was no room to shift the gang over to the right to compensate. Still need to tidy up the case and fit new speaker cloth. So the project is still on going but has moved forward in leaps and bounds. I may have another rebuild project a Phillips a total mess another of Tony H's collection if I can fix it it will go back to him .
Apart from the possum poo and chassis oxidation the power transformer will need replacing the wires are broken and hanging out of the insulation. If I attempt this project I will need help to identify the model number so I can find a circuit. So If it is ok with Brad I will post a photo, this project will be weeks away.
Kind regards Jim

Well it is all back together now I have asked Brad if he gets the time to download some photos.
It is working pretty well. The big disappointment is the dial . I may in time try and repair the original tunning condenser and reinstall it. I did try and repair it but it has several missing ball bearings these would need to be replaced firstly it had multiple shorts on both gangs in different places I had previously given it a random check on one side of the gang and assumed it was ok , had I rotated through its range I would have found it to be faulty. Did try slightly bending the vanes it would fix it in one spot but would appear somewhere else the replacement gang was 13 mm lower and unfortunately is also 13 mm off from centre compared to the original. The radio is so compact I could not remount it . It was a great leaning experience and I received much helpful advice when I got stuck. One of the highlights was repairing the badly torn fieldcoil speaker salvaged from another pile of junk. The lowlights were trying to find an Ariel and oscillator coil that would work together having said that I gained much experience from this, knowledge gained from my learnered colleagues on this forum. If someone was giving a mark out of 10 for this assignment it would have to earn at least 5 points because it now works . If you revisit page one you can see it was a total wreck. It was salvaged from Tony H's garage attic covered in possum poo with most of the components missing or damaged.
If nothing else it may give some of you an incentive to get out that little general you acquired years ago and decided it was too far gone.
You would be hard pushed to find one that was more far gone than this one. They were an important part of our early Australian radio heritage and it would be great if more were brought back into service. This is my second, the first one was a wreck also but at least all the important bits were there.
I am sure it will get some critical analysis from some of you I will not be offended by your comments. As I have said the dial is atrocious.
Thank you all for putting up with this long saga about nine pages worth. It has kept my mind engaged and occupied which if nothing else is important in these times of isolation.
Kind Regards Jim

Well I feel a bit of an idiot. Fred suggested I turn the gang up side down so I did and it made a huge improvement to the appearance of the dial and I was able to get ride of the spacers I used to pack the gang height up with. I have no idea why I had not thought about it.
Sometimes I can't see the wood for the trees.
Regards Jim.

Jimb your not alone in that lol. Thats why these forums are good. Lots of different but equally good ideas.

The EBF2G looks so shiny in its aluminium overcoat.