1968 Sears Solid State AM Radio Restoration

I love bringing these little radios back to life…

Buy this radio from my new Etsy store!

I recently received the above cute little Sears solid state AM radio for repair. This radio is a solid state model and was manufactured between 1968–70. As you can hear in the video below, when she first arrived all she did was produce a very low hum. I knew this was due to a bad filter capacitor that needed to be replaced.

In the photo below you will see the faulty, old capacitor. The trickiest part was installing new capacitors that would allow for the chassis to properly fit back into the case due to the rather small size of the radio. I soldered the two negative leads together on the new capacitors which gave me the flexibility needed to put her all back together.

In this before photo, you see the large red faulty capacitor. I had to make sure the new capacitors were small enough to fit the chassis back into the radio’s case.

While inside, I cleaned the contacts on the volume control to eliminate any scratchy noises when adjusting the volume. All other components inside tested as they should and when I put her back together, as you can hear in the video below, she now plays great. I was impressed with just how well this little radio tunes in the local AM stations.

Below are more photos of the radio and a link to purchase from my Etsy store if interested. She’s an interesting looking little radio and would make a great decorating piece or addition to anyone’s radio collection.

Buy this radio from my Etsy store!

Originally published at aaronhartley.me on July 31, 2018.