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Owner switched off amp when he saw one of the bottles melting , leaving a deep dimple over the anode but not punctured. Its matching polarity one had starting to do the same. (Reminder to myself , leave some slack in axial leaded components, regimented stuff looks fine but this is the practical downside). 100K bias supply resistor lead had snapped because tightly joined to 10K phenolic preset wiper, itself mounted on turret tag strip, not sheet, so plenty of scope to bend with humidity/temp/vib. At the moment trying to find from the owner what the sequence of distortions were before final meltdown. As one of the double pack HT electrolytic cans (for the preamp) is kaput and the reverb transformer seems also kaput. I would expect .5 to 1R // 1k to 2K but this measured DC and AC R and L , is
0.2R // open, I can never be that sure with high L. Reverb tank disconnected measures 0.8R and 165R. I'm fine with restuffing can electros ,Main HT seriesed electros seem ok, and cannot see how loss of bias would blow preamp stuff. Unwinding/Rewinding small reverb tr will be something different. The output matching transformer is 27R/27R ie the same , does that mean bifilar? seems unusual