Courier Centurion PLL Resto/Repair pot/trimmer missing?

[Shakes]

Howdy Friends. New here as I just picked up my radio today. Got a killer deal on it as I knew it was going to need repair. I am decent enough to replace some caps and have quite a bit of soldering/small electronics repair under my belt but this is the first time I have tried to repair something pretty old.
I have not powered up the radio yet as I wanted to at the very least look through it first and clean a bit before going nuts and applying power to a radio that has been sitting for decades.
I heard some rattling around and found these bits in the radio.

Searching around the radio I found these missing/damaged pots? If I can find the original value is it possible to just replace them with new standard pots provided the values are the same?

For reference here they are in relation to the rest of the board and here is a pic of my radio. If anyone knows the values or has had to come up with a solution for a similar issue any advice is appreciated.
I can see that there are 3 of them. The one in the middle (the intact one) looks like it says 30k. The one I found rattling around says 50K and there is one missing ring. The arrow things all seem to be there...one was rattling around one is stuck there in the pot and the other pot...as I said is fully intact.
My guess is someone was messing with these and broke one. That may have been what landed it on a shelf years ago.

 

[BC Coyote]

That's a great radio if you can get it working ! I had one of those for many years back in the 80's and 90's......

It has a Uniden board in it with an 858 PLL chip, and it can do 26.085 all the way up into 10 meters if you also broadband the receive and transmit circuits.
The board is similar to, but not quite the same as, those found in the 457 and 458 Navaho radios, the TRC-449 mobile, and the early version President Grant among others. I believe it to be a slightly earlier version of the same circuit.

And yes, you can replace those trimpots with newer ones so long as the legs line up with the board and the values are the same.

I'll just mention too that it may very well need to be recapped as that radio is of late 1970's vintage, and that was a LONG time ago.

Good luck with it !

 

[danmcclain]

Howdy Friends. New here as I just picked up my radio today. Got a killer deal on it as I knew it was going to need repair. I am decent enough to replace some caps and have quite a bit of soldering/small electronics repair under my belt but this is the first time I have tried to repair something pretty old.
I have not powered up the radio yet as I wanted to at the very least look through it first and clean a bit before going nuts and applying power to a radio that has been sitting for decades.
I heard some rattling around and found these bits in the radio.
View attachment 67568
Searching around the radio I found these missing/damaged pots? If I can find the original value is it possible to just replace them with new standard pots provided the values are the same?
View attachment 67569
For reference here they are in relation to the rest of the board and here is a pic of my radio. If anyone knows the values or has had to come up with a solution for a similar issue any advice is appreciated.
I can see that there are 3 of them. The one in the middle (the intact one) looks like it says 30k. The one I found rattling around says 50K and there is one missing ring. The arrow things all seem to be there...one was rattling around one is stuck there in the pot and the other pot...as I said is fully intact.
My guess is someone was messing with these and broke one. That may have been what landed it on a shelf years ago.
View attachment 67570
View attachment 67571

Nice radio. Would you like me to scan the Sams Info for that radio? I do have that Sam CB-290 Volume that its in... Dan (It comes with a parts list so you can see what you need to replace.)

 

[Shakes]

Nice radio. Would you like me to scan the Sams Info for that radio? I do have that Sam CB-290 Volume that its in... Dan (It comes with a parts list so you can see what you need to replace.)

Yes sir that would be great. I did a quick search and couldn't locate a complete copy on the web. Just a page here and a page there. Going to need something like that as I see no other way to find the values of the missing/damaged trimmers.

 

[Shakes]

That's a great radio if you can get it working ! I had one of those for many years back in the 80's and 90's......

It has a Uniden board in it with an 858 PLL chip, and it can do 26.085 all the way up into 10 meters if you also broadband the receive and transmit circuits.
The board is similar to, but not quite the same as, those found in the 457 and 458 Navaho radios, the TRC-449 mobile, and the early version President Grant among others. I believe it to be a slightly earlier version of the same circuit.

And yes, you can replace those trimpots with newer ones so long as the legs line up with the board and the values are the same.

I'll just mention too that it may very well need to be recapped as that radio is of late 1970's vintage, and that was a LONG time ago.

Good luck with it !

Thanks m8! Yeah caps will need to be done but before I do anything I wanna see it fire up. Not comfortable doing that though until I know exactly what those trimmers do or I replace them.
I am pretty excited about this as I was looking for a vintage SSB radio to start with. I was signal in the army many moons ago and this is my first stab at civilian radio.

 

[danmcclain]

Yes sir that would be great. I did a quick search and couldn't locate a complete copy on the web. Just a page here and a page there. Going to need something like that as I see no other way to find the values of the missing/damaged trimmers.

Ok give me some time to scan it, then will put it here... Dan

 

[danmcclain]

Yes sir that would be great. I did a quick search and couldn't locate a complete copy on the web. Just a page here and a page there. Going to need something like that as I see no other way to find the values of the missing/damaged trimmers.

Here is the Sams Info that you need.... Have fun... Dan

 

[Shakes]

Here is the Sams Info that you need.... Have fun... Dan

Fantastic Thanks Dan! Beautiful clear scans too. I really appreciate you taking the time to scan those in and upload them for a total stranger.
Took me all of 1 min to figure out those bad boys control my squelch looks like. AM and SSB.
That is a very nice service manual. No wonder the guys on youtube always talk about them.

 

[danmcclain]

Fantastic Thanks Dan! Beautiful clear scans too. I really appreciate you taking the time to scan those in and upload them for a total stranger.
Took me all of 1 min to figure out those bad boys control my squelch looks like. AM and SSB.
That is a very nice service manual. No wonder the guys on youtube always talk about them.

I'm glad it helped you. We have enough things to worry about so paying for info on a radio just doesn't make sense. Beware of the price gougers... Dan

 

[Shakes]

Fired her up for the first time. She lights up and the clock works! I have cleaned and checked the board for any obvious damage...everything seems to work ok. Cleaned with a brush, compressed air and very lightly oiled some of the stuck buttons (clock oil...tiny drops) so everything on the face turns and clicks as it should.
Squelch is obviously out (maxed out with the missing pots) but I have some new pots coming from a local guy via ebay. Just a HISS coming from the radio at the moment with max volume but its more than I could have expected! Very pleased so far.

Just ordered a cap kit from @Klondike Mike once I install those I can really see where I am at. I do not expect any of these caps to be operating to spec so best to just proactively replace them.
The kit I picked up. $38 for the kit plus ship and a small tip for having my radio listed ;-)

Courier Centurion PLL40 electrolytic capacitor kit

Electrolytic radial capacitor kit for Courier Centurion PLL40. This kit includes 53 components in total.

klondikemikescapkits.com

Pretty exciting stuff given I have zero experiance with vintage radios so everything is new, facinating, and fun.
Here we gooooooo!!!!