Started cleaning, Restoring, Reproducing...

Started the cleaning and replacing parts. Resistors and capacitors on order. Speaker is in great shape. Pulled off the grill cloth. Ordered a new dial belt to replace the incorrect dial cord that didn't work.

Lots of dust but a pristine speaker.

No dust cover but there is no evidence there ever was one.

Grill cloth is attached to the cabinet not the speaker board.

Some repair person in the past rigged the dial cord/belt. Usually something like this is done because the tuning capacitor rubber mounts are shot putting to much slack in the cord/belt.

That repair person replaced the old filter capacitors with old school replacements. Note the big blue tube and the chassis mount silver square capacitors.

Removed the dial cord. One, a single trip around and the other three trips around.

I tried replacing the cord with a single cord with 5 trips, didn't work well.

Then I found out that this radio had a belt and got one on order.

Much cleaner

Old patent label. I'll reproduce it using MS PowerPoint and some graphics I bought off ebay.

Needed measurements for reproduction.

More Online data

Got this off antiqueradios.com forum. The reason why the speaker plug was not included in the schematic is they just added it to the design and had not updated the schematic for the latest design.

Most likely configuration:

From radiomuseum.org ( https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/zenith_5s151_ch5516.html )

And More Pictures (pre-restore)

Grill Cloth

Just received this grill cloth in the mail. Bought two pieces, one for the radio grill and the other for a nice doily Sue will make for the top.

Some more pictures

That blue electrolytic replaced the wet capacitors. My guess that this was done many moons ago.

One of the tuner mounting pads, will replace with new.

Start of Restoration

Picked up this radio recently that was for sale on the Grants Pass Facebook buy/sell page. Owner lived just outside of Grants Pass off Redwood highway. She said she bought it in Nebraska while visiting Wyoming. Radio is a 1937 vintage Zenith model 5-S-151 chassis #5516 three band with 5 tubes. Cabinet is fairly good shape with only one corner with the veneer scraped off.

Alignment instructions from the Zenith Service Manual: models 5S119, 5S126, 5S127, 5S150, 5S151,5S161 (chassis 5516)

1. Output of sig gen to the grid of the 6A8 1st detector and rcvr chassis. Output meter across the spkr leads.

2. Sig gen set to 456kc; adjust the 4 IF xfmr adjusting screws for maximum indication on the output meter. Repeat IF adjustments for maximum accuracy and gain.

3. Reconnect sig gen to the antenna and ground terminals. Sig gen remains set to 456kc.

4. Adjust the wave trap located on the rear of the chassis for minimum output reading.

5. Set sig gen at 6mc. Switch receiver to band B and adjust osc trimmer on tuning gang for correct dial rading. Osc trimmer is the adjustment on the tuning cap nearest the front of the chassis.

6. Set sig gen at 1400kc. Switch rcvr to band A and adjust broadcast trimmer located nearest to the front of the 6A8 tube. Set for correct 1400kc dial reading. Also adjust ant trimmer on the tuning gang for resonance. Ant trimmer is the one on the rear of the tuning cap.

7. Set sig gen at 18mc. Switch receiver to band C and adjust the short wave trimmer while rocking the pointer past 18mc on the dial to the combination giving the greatest output.

8.Set sig gen on 600kc. Switch receiver to band A. Rock pointer past 600 on the dial while adjusting the broadcast padder, which is located between the tuning cap gangs and the 1st IF transormer. Adjust to the combination that gives the greatest output reading.

9. Readjust broadcast and ant trimmers at 1400kc as in operation 6.

The manual makes no mention of connecting the high side of the sig generator to the test point through a capacitor or resistor. Often, such instructions require a cap of .1 mfd when aligning the IFs and broadcast band. When aligning the short wave band, often a resistor of 400 ohms is required in the hot side of the sig gen. Sometimes, the intermediate SW band (police band) is aligned using a small value cap in series with the sig gen hot lead.

Have not been able to find a matching grill cloth so I plan to buy one that I like, thinking of this one: