Fixing my grandma's old radio led to a capacitor surprise

I dug out my grandma's old AM/FM radio from the attic last weekend. I thought it would be a simple clean and recap job. When I opened it up, I found a bunch of bulging capacitors, which was no shock. I swapped them all out with new ones, but now the tuner is all fuzzy and won't pick up stations right. I read online that old radios need alignment after cap replacement, but I don't have the gear for that. Has anyone here fixed a vintage radio without fancy equipment? I'm loving the project, but this hurdle has me scratching my head.

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3 Comments

roberts.aaron6mo ago

Bulging capacitors in an attic radio. The real shock is that swapping them broke the tuner.

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the_blair5mo ago

Swapping caps shouldn't break a tuner if you did it right. Maybe the old leaky caps were actually masking a different problem, like faith_chen72 found with her solder joints.

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faith_chen726mo ago

That tuner issue sounds familiar roberts.aaron. I fixed mine by reflowing all the solder joints after recapping.

2