Musicians: Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Tube Amp problem

my condolences. im a big fan of the hot rod and fender amps in general - i have a 72 bassman and a newer princeton chorus.

if it was me, i would see if it works again after drying out. ive had a minor spill that shut the amp down, but after drying out it did come back on. if not, i would go straight to a repair shop. i wouldnt even mess with any of the internals (of course, i dont really know what im doing - i take my bassman to a repair shop just to change out the tubes). anyway, unless you have experince w/ working on amps, id just take it in to get it looked at by a pro. if there is some damage, they could surely fix it.

you dont want to do any permanent damage to your amp.

id make the beer spiller pay for any repairs though!

if you are in the austin area, check out music exchange on north loop. they do good work.

 

Here is the page to find an "official service center" which I'd use if it comes to that.


They also have amp schematics on the website, though I'm not sure they do you much good. It does tell me, however, that the tubes in question are 12AX7's and are part of the pre-amp stage. This is good. That means you won't kill anybody by messing around with the power amp stage.

What you should use is contact cleaner, not alcohol. Here is an example of one brand of contact cleaner. This can be purchaced at an electronic parts store or someplace like Fry's. The idea is the stuff washes out the gunk and evaporates without any residue, so use enough to wash out the sockets, and you might even look at the pots on the top.

Be very careful as contact cleaner is really, really flamable. I once cleaned an inkjet printer with some and let it get too close to the pilot light on my gas range. Poof!

But once it's evaporated it's all gone. Once you're sure it's dry, put the tubes back in and turn it back on. If you get the stink again, the liquid probably ruined some electrolytic capacitors, or resistors or something in the preamp stage and are sending too much juice to the particular tube. If this is the case take it to a dealer.

If not you can:

• Cause aditional damage to electrical parts further down the chain
• Blow a tube
• Melt a tube socket
  or
• Start a fire.

The good news is that if it does require repair, it's almost all labor. The parts won't cost more than $10. My guess is it'd probably be a bill in the range of $150 for repair, but that's just a guess.

For the record, the most expensive parts of the amp are the speakers and the high-voltage transformer in the power portion of the amp.

Anyway, I feel your pain. I used to have a Blues Jr. which sounded just awesome, and my girlfriend has the Hot Rod Deluxe. When I showed her your post she gave a sympathy chuckle, as she works an open mike night and has to replace stuff all the time because beer spillage or leaky roofs or whatever.

 

UT, just think of this as your window of opportunity to get a Vox AC30

Sadly, no other advise than getting it to a repair shop ASAP! Good luck, amigo.

 

I would just turn the amp back on and jab the tube socket with pointy metal objects and see what happens...

 

If I remember correctly, Jeff knows the best repair shop in town....I just know a good guitar repair person.

 

In my best Jerry Seinfeld voice, I'm not sure that you did know this because you did it so how come you did do it if you knew not to do it?

Also, turning the amp on when it was wet with beer was not your best move, either.

If I didn't know any better, then I would think your looking for an excuse to get rid of that amp and buy a new one.

 

Well, you got your suggestions so that's all that was left to do was to play the bad guy and make you feel even more like sh*t than you already do.

 

Sounds to me like you need to clean out the tube sockets.

Oh, and don't turn on your amp again. With or without the tubes in. Not until you clean that beer off.

Most likely, you can see the spill lines where the beer went into. So yeah, get in there good and clean the tube sockets. Then clean the tubes.

Most likely there's no real damage. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't blow your fuse.