Transporting an Old Radio?

[epr25]

We are looking into buying the radio shown below. I have an SUV but with gas prices as they are I would like to use the small car we have to make the 100 mile trek to pick it up. Does anyone know if it would be detrimental to lay this on it's back for the journey? I was thinking we could remove and pack the tubes for safety but it does have a record player. Not sure how that is placed or fastened?

 

[dhermann1]

I transported my big Zenith over 400 miles to New York when I got it, and it was fine. If you put some bubble wrap in among the tubes and components so they don't bang around, you should be OK. Are you planning n having it looked at by a professional? Has it been restored? If not, the capacitors HAVE to be replaced. There is a serious fire hazard if that's not done. For a large radio you can take the chassis out of the box, and wrap it up separately. I think if you tied the tone arm down and add a little bubble wrap, the record player should be OK as well.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I second the idea of pulling the chassis -- it's usually held in place by some bolts thru the bottom of the mounting shelf, and once these are removed, you can simply disconnect the speaker plug and wires to the phono unit and slide it right out. Wrap it up carefully and box it for transport -- be careful not to lose any of the tube shields or other small parts. The phono unit will also come out once you find the bolts holding it in place. Unless you really have to, though, don't remove the speaker -- leave it bolted to the baffle inside the cabinet. This is the best protection against puncturing the cone, which is something you don't want to do!

Once it's been dismantled, it should be a lot easier to move -- I once moved an entire Victor RE-57 in a Volkswagen beetle by taking it apart first!

 

[epr25]

Cool. Thanks I just didn't want to do any damage by not knowing what we were doing.

 

[Pilgrim]

Once you unbolt or unscrew it, take your time before pulling it out the back. Any knobs on the front will need to be removed (usually by pulling, set screws are rare) and I've seen some which had dials or other connections to the front face of the case. Chances are that everything will work as Lizziemaine has outlined.

Personally, I've transported a number of old tube radios in vehicles and as long as they don't roll around or fall over, I just brace them in place with padding and I'm not worried about them. Tubes are a lot less fragile than most people think. The rest of the radio (especially old grille cloth) is sometimes less robust than the tubes.