This is the beginning of a remarkable journey for a wounded, discarded, lonely Fender Super Six Reverb amplifier. The victim of a band van crash, it was abandoned for years...until now.
My parts arrived from Mojotone and Allparts. I ordered 12 new Fender black skirted knobs, a replacement treble potentiometer for the vibrato channel and a new on/off light jewel.
I cleaned decades of dirt and spray paint off the face using q-tips and methyl ethyl ketone (MEK). I had to be very careful with the pressure because MEK will also strip the original faceplate paint. I was fairly successful and only lost a tiny bit of the original knob labeling and outlines.
The potentiometer replacement was pretty uneventful. The amp tested out fine so I moved on to installing the new knobs. While installing the knobs, I discovered that the shafts of the volume and midrange potentiometers of the vibrato channel were so badly bent that the knobs couldn't turn properly. These were the left and right neighbors of the treble pot that was replaced because of a broken shaft. This was obviously the point of impact when the chassis and top cabinet panel were torn from the amp cabinet in the van wreck.
I have given up on cleaning the paint and rust from the chassis straps. I also need a reverb tank and a fuse. I placed another order to the good folks at Mojotone to acquire replacements for these components. They should be here next week and I will post another installment.
The cabinet from Mojotone arrived yesterday evening. The cabinet is very high quality. I checked the fit of the width of the chassis and it was dead on. I was surprised to find that the cabinet had not been pre-drilled to accept the chassis hanger bolts. After reflecting on it a bit, I understand why Mojotone doesn't do this, but it would be nice to have that as an order option. There probably is one and I just didn't see it on the web site or think to ask. Mojotone provides the speaker mounting screws as part of the cabinet but did not include nuts and lock washers. Certainly not a big deal, but less logical to me than the hanger bolt holes.
Next step is to install the two 50 watt, 12" Celestion speakers and wire them.
I am waiting on the replacement parts for the two damaged potentiometers, chassis hangers and fuses. I need to make those repairs before installing the chassis. They should arrive in the next couple of days. Unfortunately, my reverb tank is on backorder. Oh well, it's been thirty years. I guess a few more days won't hurt... Next installment - speaker installation.
All the parts have arrived. I installed the two new potentiometers and a fuse. The amp tested fine so I moved on to installing the speakers. I installed two 12" Celestion 50 watt Rocket speakers and wired them for a 4 ohm load.
Finally, I was ready for the chassis installation! As I mentioned earlier, the cabinet was not predrilled for the chassis hangers. This was a critical step as there isn't a lot of room for error. As it turned out, I got one bolt hole a little off. This made aligning all four bolts a bit tricky. I prevailed and the amp was ready to play!
I added the reverb tank. I have a couple more things to do to get this amp running at its best, including a reverb tank bag and new 6L6 tubes. I will be adding these components in a few weeks. It sounds really powerful yet warm. Not bad for a poor old amp that was headed for the landfill! Yay!!
