Hey I'm in the midst of a restoration on a Kriesler 11-98 I purchased.

I have got the changer back into working order and have moved on to cleaning up the chassis with some contact cleaner, as the volume, balance and tone pots/dials all produced static when moved. Everything else appears to be in good order to my eyes. Good sound (apart from static), radio and changer work.

I was ready to place back in the cabinet when I spied this loose wire (black), and cant determine where it has come from. Can anyone help?

Cheers

Wes

Photos uploaded.

Looks like it just goes back to earth lug to chassis.
So, goes back to the days of external earth and aerial connection.
BTW, may need some caps checking/replacing and earthed power cord.
JJ

Actually that looks new enough to have polyester caps instead of paper and that stage the electros were OK too. The power cord is 3 pin but do check for rubber insulation on the internal conductors. If found, replace the power cable.

The black wire I think connects to the heat isolator plate in the lid or top of the cabinet (stops the cabinet from crazing from the heat) Lazy techs used to just cut it.

Speaker transformers are the later plastic bobbin types with polyester wire so should also be OK.

Nice, clean and original!

The notes accompanying the schematic say: "Since three-core power flex is used, no separate earth is generally needed; however, if the mains earth is not a satisfactory radio earth, a separate earth may be connected to the black lead at the back of the cabinet."

Great info thankyou everyone! Ill grab some pictures of the caps later today, and the power cord, to get your opinions.

It is a 3 pin cord, which I was undecided on replacing. Its old but not perished that I can see.

Cheers!

A lot of sets (due to what people got up to) had an external aerial wire and a separate earth wire.

Where the set has a transformer, you can remove it & just fit a mains cable with an earth rather than the often dodgy two wire one.

Marc

If there are any wax paper caps in there, replace them, otherwise, leave them alone.

That generation from Kriesler was usually fitted with Philips "mustard" caps. They are always OK unless physically damaged (e.g. wire pulled out of the end etc.)

If mains cable has plastic insulated red, black and green wires, not rubber, it will be OK too.

If you get intermittent crackling in one or the other channel, especially after it has been running for a while, the Philips Miniwatt 6GW8s of that vintage were known for this. Expensive to replace now, they are a desirable "audiophile" valve!

I used to do warranty service work on these things when they were new! A retailer in my service area sold a LOT of Kriesler products.

Leaking oil filled & wax paper caps here are duds: One standard mine, or commercial a non polarised cap that leaks is a current, or future problem. If a cap like a Mica is out of circuit. It gets tested and the probability of finding a good one of the others is remote.

If you are not sure of a Non polarised caps integrity, my normal, with one end out of circuit, is to use one of the insulation testers that read Mega ohms at as near to its test voltage, or the voltage it is rated at. if there is a reading under 200 Meg it should be tossed and I toss it anyway if it leaks at all.

For the new: The only thing an Ohm meter will tell you is that a cap (not electrolytic) is a dead short. A leaking cap may still test as being the right capacity.

Some UCC caps in plastic tube jackets are actually paper: Beware.

Wes you don't have any such worries with this unit. Kriesler didn't use UCC at this time and almost certainly no wax paper caps either. If there are any which is unlikely they will be in places where they will do no harm if leaky. Manufacturers like Kriesler by this time were well aware of the characteristics and lifetime of paper caps.

The ARTS&P label is the giveaway for the age of the unit.

As I said, I did warranty service on these when they were new.

Re UCC paper caps, the ones Marc is referring to are white and branded "Hi Qual". If you see one of these, replace it.
The other similar caps are polyester and branded "Di Pol". They will be OK.

Ive got some pictures to upload, thanks in advance. Hope you guys can shed light on what exactly I have running in here.

Photos uploaded to Post 11.

I'd recap that set. Those dark yellow wax capacitors are no good, especially the one in the top centre of the 2nd photo which looks to have started to lose its wax. The elctrolytics don't last forever either so they are usually replaced too. Also, those old carbon resistors tend to go high with age, so the routine is to measure them as you recap. The idea being to do the resto work once. If you do these things piecemeal, there's a good chance that you'll have to open it up again down the track.

Yeah I'd replace those 4 waxed caps at the very least, and measure all the resistors, especially all those 470k ones around the output valves.

Yes that looks like an early production chassis. Replace those 4 wax caps.

After you do that, if you have no hum, I'd leave the electros in. That generation of blue Ducon electros was fairly good.

But I can see two wax paper caps from the anode of each 6M5 to ground that are definitely leaky and would be responsible for some hum.

I was wrong about the 6GW8s, your chassis has 6M5s and a 12AX7!