Low Boy, before you do that...
Install an Ammeter in the power line going to your radio.
Put a power (wattmeter) on your antenna or resistive load...
Then use SSB and observe the meters.
Do the same for AM. - FM too for that matter.
This is so you can understand that Carrier may be one factor, A power at a frequency.
Adding Audio to modulate the carrier to generate an envelope of power around the carrier is another.
I've gotta keep this simple so other can take the ball but you'll see that AM power in envelope can take up to 4 times more power than SSB - which is why SSB radios are the more preferred radios versus AM only types.
If you try to run AM power full carrier - you could not generate enough audio power or overcome the carrier - then you need FM mode to do that. And its' class of operation C, D and E or above - and that requires another type of power, called deviation - where the frequency shifts around the carriers' "center" and the receiving radio tunes into this signal but keeps it's tuning "centered" and the FM signal is decoded, demodulated - from the straight-line center of the receiver BEAT FREQUENCY (its own IF) resonating and heterodyning with the incoming signal and the incoming signal generates the "shift" you head as audio or music or the intelligence embedded in that signal.
So the DRIVER in your radio will be doing all the work, but the Finals can be run on full rail voltage - hence the Red Wire On Bottom (RWOB) mod. But you aren't affecting "carrier" that's done way up the TX chain towards the Pre-driver and mixer - the Driver and Final do all the audio work...onto the carrier.
You can lose some audio punch with this setup - and if you use an HR2510 - you already know of the audio limitations on the AM envelope because the HR2510 (and any Jackson from that era) is "low-level" modulated - it doesn't have the audio envelope impressed upon the plates, or across the collectors of the Finals and Driver like a typical CB or SSB / CB radio has. It's done at the beginning of the chain, back at the mixer, the 7320 - it has a "preamp" that they use as an audio amp to mix into the two other signals - else it's cutoff (FM mode or CW). So it has to be done on the low-level side to obtain envelope, the 2510 doesn't have a pass transistor setup.
Then if you wish, you can do the RWOB mod and use the Driver only and the finals will do all the power out work. But you will only be using the driver - so NPC mods and stuff aside, Driver only RWOB mods can't use NPC - they won't compete well against fully modulated radios in similar setups.
Yours may last longer, as long as you don't go crazy and over modulated the driver, that can fail because of excessive audio and will bear the load from all your audio - its' (The Driver) your pinch-point for audio and you may not like the results unless you take steps otherwise to impose two-stage audio - injecting it further up the chain.
When you look at how the pass transistor switching works, you'll see that in SSB modes, they (the Driver and Finals) get full power but no audio yet the pass transistors seem to stay cool and you see power racing off the rails to the antenna as you talk into the microphone.
Why - Pass transistors are being used as a simple On-Off switch for SSB and FM - the AN612 and the Mixer (the 7310 - note difference in numbering) are doing all the work,.
IN AM mode the pass transistors are now the "mixer" and take DC power and Audio signal making it into a Bias plus Audio - it's a linear operation. And the level of power that is there is not used as a simple switch on or off. It's a varying load swing - 12 Volts is one voltage, but you have voltages between 12 and 0 (or carrier at 4.5VDC) that exist at any given moment in time as you talk - these pass transistors have to take the supply rail - drop it down to that - as both voltage and current vectors - so this process of making DC rise and fall with audio - being linear - is pretty dynamic and generates a lot of heat as power from DC is changed modified - is rerouted and shifted it has to be dissipated as heat - is also what kills those pass-transistors - so operating as a full on mode helps the Driver and Final do their job for SSB mode.
:+> Andy <+:
