40's or 50's Crosley TV/Phono: what have I done

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petek

petek

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I was out junking today and ran across this 1940's or very early 50's gargantuan Crosley TV. The cabinet is gargantuan, the tv screen is all of 9 inches inside and there's also a phonograph in there as well. It measures about 3 feet wide by 3.5 feet tall by a good 2.5 feet deep with two cabinet doors on the front. Anyways, I paid the guy for it and told him I'd pick it up in a day or two (was raining today) Now I'm having second thoughts I'll ever get around to doing anything with it..I doubt it even works.. but it has all the knobs, and the cabinet is near pristine. My other half is NOT happy. LOL

On the bright side I did get a nice turquoise GE kitchen clock and the attachment gear assembly for a Sunbeam Mixmaster.
 
It's easy, Pete.

Kiss him off, and marry me!
(Just Kidding, EVERYONE.)

Anyway, I think the Crosley TV-phono is a find. Yes, a find.

And that's way cool about the Mixmaster power unit.

I hope you will (or already have) posted a snap of the clock.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Now Pete

You can always get another "other half"

where in the world will you ever find another TV like you described???

We're with you my friend!
 
Well here's the clock anyways

It's smaller than it appears in the photo.
I'll get the tv home and then figure out what I'm gonna do with it. The place I got it is a treasure trove of stuff. You could spend hours poking thru everything. You have to because it's such a disorganized mess.. LOL
 
DON'T TURN IT ON

When you get it home. Fully inspect it's innards to make sure everything is OK. First, look at the power cord and make sure it's not cracked or frayed. Second, remove the chasses and look underneath. Make sure nobody's hacked it up and removed any parts from the chassis. Third, inspect all the components. Look at the smaller paper capacitors and make sure they are not bubbled or deformed looking. Look at the larger capacitors and make sure they don't have any corrosion around them. Last, get a tube checker, and make sure none of the tubes are shorted and that they are all good.

If everything passes muster, THEN you can plug it in and turn it on! Allow at least a minute to see a picture, and at least 10-15 minutes for it to stabilize to the point where it won't require any tweaking. You WILL need to tweak horizontal, vertical, etc when it's turned on, that's just the nature of an old television, and is not a malfunction!
 
What I should have gotten instead...a store nearby had a beautiful little Wards Airline side table with a built in radio that sort of tilted out from the front. You would never know by looking at the table that it contained this radio. Sort of a delicate looking french provincial tea table design. Very nice but he wanted too much for it.
 
On a TV/Radio this old almost all of the capacitors are likely to be bad...caps can often look good but still be shorted. Also, these devices rarely have any fuse protection built in.
We don't even plug in something of this age until all capacitors are replaced. Even if it were to test out OK on the first test, problems will start to develop with those old capacitors if the set continues to be used.
 
Yikes! NO PLUGGIE IN, PLEASE.

Caps are gone in that thing, trust me, no matter how they look.

Restore it to safety or keep it as a conversation piece only; don't mess with Mr. In-Between.

One possibility: I recently saw a Fifties Philco that had been gutted, and its CRT replaced with an LCD TV. Looked pretty authentic at first glance, but was completely up-to-date inside. Since the LCD TV was located behind the tube mask and a layer of safety glass, you couldn't really tell unless you were familiar with the weird grey-green colour of old CRT's when they were turned off.
 
I won't be plugging it in that's for sure. Possibly make it into a cabinet for my newer tv to fit in with my rek room decor but then I hate to "destroy" things especially if I know someone else might really want it later on to get it working.
 
Pete, don't gut that set! A Crosley of that size should be relatively simple to restore. The first step to bringing home a set of that age, should you make it a habit ,is to bring it up slowly on a variac. The old-timers that collect tv's/radios do this to re-form the electrolytic caps. Most don't believe in replacing them. My preference is replacement if it's going to see daily use.

But the big reason for using the variac is to check for any activity on the crt to find out if the big ticket items are in ok shape prior to tearing the thing apart (the crt itself and flyback xformer). If it doesn't look like the set has been screwed around with, leave the tubes in place. 90% of the time they're just fine.
-Cory
 
Yeah Pete, don't gut that Crosley. There was a guy on here with handle "CaptainMoody" and I've seen him on some TV restoration discussion sites. Those sites are way straight and I think maybe the good Captain could have abandoned AW after he realized that this site was anything but straight. You might want to pull up his profile and contact him, or you can check out "Audiokarma.org" or "AntiqueRadios.com" both of which have discussion threads on vintage TV restoral and repair. I'll bet somebody on one of those sites will be interested in your Crosley, Pete.
 
Apologies to Captain Moody

Hey, I stand corrected. CaptainMoody is still posting here (just came across his Norge Timeline find in Imperial threads) so Pete I suggest you contact him.
 
Update on the crosley

I decided on Thursday to forgo the Crosley and called the guy I'd bought it from and told him to resell it, I'm taking it as a loss. Thankfully it wasn't alot of money, whew. Why you ask? Well it just turned into a big hassle here at home about bring more stuff in..especially big heavy stuff and this time the arguing wasn't worth it. I'm still sort of pissed off about all though..lol
 

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