Crosley Model 11-104U "Bullseye" Radio

This little Crosley AM radio is from 1951 and is an auto-themed set. It's grill and dial resemble an old speedometer. It's also called a "bullseye" style, but now in the age of Star Wars it's definitely a "Darth Vader" to me.
The cabinet is black Bakelite with a gold-tone grill cloth and lettering. And the tuning dial is centered in the speaker grill. Since it's a single band radio, it only has knobs for tuning and volume.
The chassis has some oxidation and dirt on it, but only one or two small spots of rust. There's melted wax also from the old waxed paper and foil capacitors.
Under the chassis it looks like every one of the wax paper capacitors has been overheated to the point of melting the wax coating.
The speaker had a rubber baffle ring around it that has drooped and turned into rock. I'll probably just replace it with a foam rubber ring.
Unfortunately, someone has dropped the set on a rear corner, chipping it and cracking the Bakelite case along that side. The crack has been glued and since it's not visible from the front I'll just leave it as is.
The dial pointer is clear acrylic and it inserts into the center dial string wheel. But it was rusted in the hole and would not pull out. To loosen it up I had to carefully get penetrating oil into the hole without getting it all over the speaker grill cloth. Then I was able to pull it out with just my fingers.
The power cord is a bit toasty so I cut it off and will replace it with one that has a molded polarized plug. Imagine the look on the face of the person who plugged this set in when this happened.
The parts replaced include six paper capacitors, two electrolytic filter capacitors, five resistors, two tubes and the power cord. I also added a fuse and rewired the power switch into the line side of the power cord.
Back together and playing like a champ. The alignment is straight forward and only took about 10 minutes. It actually has a decent quality sound with no hum, and is pretty sensitive for an AA5 design. My wife likes the style of this little set and snagged it as "hers".
Page created 7/28/2023
​Last updated 7/29/2023