HELP NEEDED! Hot Rod Deluxe Volume drop.

[BustedAmp]

Hi Everyone,

I got an 18month old HRD & while trying to connect up my effects unit I stupidly mixed up the leads & plugged the guitar lead into the effects unit (instead of amp input) & the lead that was meant to go into the effects unit into the amp input.

So i had a lead going from the preamp out into the input 2 socket, tried to play, heard nothing so turned the amp up then noticed the jack in the input socket pulsating , so quickly turned the amp down & unplugged the jack.

Realising what i had done plugged the right lead for guitar into input but then found my clean channels volume was a lot lower than normal. before 2-3 was loud now i can turn it up to 12 & it isnt nearly as loud as before.

When I change to the drive channel theres no problem it is freakin loud.
I tried switching power tubes round with each other, no change. I switched the positions of each preamp tube one by one to all the different combonations, still no change. I even opend the thing up & checked all resisitors & caps which if i'm checing right??? all seem to work. How do you know if you've checked them right?

Does anyone have any idea how to resolve this without having to take it to a tech??

Would really appreciate any help, have been trying to sort this for 2 weeks & run out of ideas. Thanks!

[Enzo]

It is a year and a half old. You the original owner? It has a 5 year warranty. Take it in to the nearest Fender repair shop for warranty repair. If you connected the preamp out to an input, it shouldn;t blow anything up, just oscillate. Besides, no reason to tell anyone what you did.

[BustedAmp]

I'm not the original owner & don't have any sales reciepts or anything to get it warranted.
It must have been oscillating really bad because at the time i could see the jack lead physically moving.
No of course, I just thought if i told everyone what I did to cause the issue it'd help narrow down the possibilities of what might be wrong.

I had anoither look at it last night & tried using the chop stick method of prodding & tapping components & circuit boards while switched on. Found that left power tube(viewed from back) looses its little blue glow every now & then or when the board it sits on is tapped, the blue glow will dissapear until you tap it again to try & bring it back.
Is it possible for a bad solder joint on power tube to cause loss of volume?
I thought both channels use both power tubes at same time? so if the drive channel works fine, then theoreticly this shouldn't matter?

[Enzo]

I am having a hard time getting my head around a moving jack. There just is not enough power available at preamp outs and input jacks to move anything. And no matter what was flowing up the wire, it wouldn;t make the jacks shake.

Now I can believe that a jack is loose and shaking around, but not because of oscilation or anything like that.

[BustedAmp]

Yeah, I don't know what was making it move/vibrate but when i turned the volume up thats what i saw.
Maybe the signal going through input 1? or just me nudging the lead.

Well it's definitely down on volume, whatever would cause that, i dont know. If I cant find the fault this week i'll start looking for a quality amp tech to take a look. I just got a funny feeling its something small & simple i could probably sort out myself, if i knew what!

[pdf64]

Try just plugging a lead straight through the effects loop - one end to fx send, other to fx return.

[BustedAmp]

Last night I tried plugging a lead from the fx send to fx return & has no improvement, at a stab in the dark tried plugging in footswitch but doesn't help. Also tried plugging a second lead into input 2 at the same time as playing through input 1. been trying anything & everything, but did manage to secure the pin connection on the left output tube(viewed from back) which gives that blue glow to the tube & when connected makes the sound a lot more clear crisp & resonant. Not sure on pin number but 5 o'clock when at back of cabinet looking down on circuit board.