At 09:08 AM 5/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>
>For those of you that have rebuilt KT34s, what technique did you use to clean
>inside the clamps. I thought of buying a round file. Any other ideas?
>
Just finished rebuilding a KT34 about 2 months ago. I had disassembled the
elements from the boom about five years ago so I decided to go ahead a tear
it down the rest of the way due to the fact that it was an old beam and I
was planning on brining up to current spec.
For the cleaning of all of the internal parts, I went to Walmart and bought
every size gun barrel cleaning brushes that they had. I bought a couple of
rifle cleaning kits to go with it. I connected as many of the rods as I
needed and I was able to clean everything from the clamps to the longest
pieces of tubing. I used a cordless drill and chucked up the cleaning rods
in the drill (very careful with this). This, along with a little WD-40 and
something to rinse it off, will make it shine. Really helps with getting
all the critters out of the small tubing.
>Also, do you recommend disassembling everything on the elements? I don't have
>to disassemble everything to replace the blue caps, i.e. the two clamps and L
>shaped aluminum coming away from both sides of the insulator and the end
element
>piece, but maybe it is worth it due to the amount of oxidation I see everywhere
>else.
I completly dissasembled mine becauuse it was also very corroded but I also
had to change the capacitor tubes and caps. It really wasn't as difficult
as I was told it would be.
>
>And finally, what is a good way to clean up the screws which have a lot of
>oxidation at the top of the threads?
>
>
Don't bother. I took a parts list to the local house of nuts and bolts and
replaced all of the hardware. The most expensive parts were the 3 1/2 inch
bolts but you probably won't need to replace them. I tried to clean them
with every I could think of including various industrial solvents and it
just wasn't worth it. It was to cheap to just buy new screws.
And after all of this. I put it back together per the manf. instructions
and to my amazement it was on the money the first time. Yes, even 15 meters.
Good luck
KK5LC
Shane Dugas
Prairieville, LA
Shane@eatel.net
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