Fender '59 Bassman LTD Reissue Question

[wmupat79]

I recently picked up one of these from a guy who let it sit in his garage forever. It wasn't in as bad a shape as I thought, and I cleaned it up pretty well. after retubing and testing much of the circuit, I'm left with two things. One, the cover for the back of the electronics cavity and tube area is missing. I believe it is Part 036115 on the attached manual. There is also a ground that is bolted to the chassis that i believe would have gone into flashing on the back inside of the missing cavity cover. Can anybody confirm this? Also, since that back piece is missing and I cannot seem to find online, If I cut out a new piece of wood to fit it, could I glue aluminum foil to the inside of it and ground it with that wire? Please let me know and thank you for your time. I looked through as many other forums as I could on here for the Bassman, but could not find exactly what I was looking for.

59_bassman_manual.pdf

[g1]

From what I recall, they did use stick on foil for the rear panel. and that is where the ground wire attached to.

[wmupat79]

From what I recall, they did use stick on foil for the rear panel. and that is where the ground wire attached to.

Thank you very much! I will go ahead with that plan then.

[52 Bill]

I believe it is Part 036115 on the attached manual. There is also a ground that is bolted to the chassis that i believe would have gone into flashing on the back inside of the missing cavity cover. Can anybody confirm this? Also, since that back piece is missing and I cannot seem to find online, If I cut out a new piece of wood to fit it, could I glue aluminum foil to the inside of it and ground it with that wire?

If you can't get a replacement from Fender, try Mojo.

[wmupat79]

Good call on the Mojo. Just found exactly the piece I need, thanks. I had originally retubed the amp, but in the power section I used a borrowed pair of JJ 6l6GC's from a friend to test, and it sounded great. When I bought and put in some Electro-Harmonix 6l6's, though, now i get bad feedback. So...now back to troubleshooting. Thanks everyone.

[Chuck H]

I've never known different power tubes to cause acutely problematic feedback. Unless the amp is now louder and you're experiencing acoustic feedback. Did anything else get changed or even worked on between the JJ and the EH tubes? Anything at all?

[wmupat79]

Thank you for your reply. It doesn't really sound like acoustic feedback to me, more like radio static. I haven't had time to go after it since I changed them again. I wonder though if it isn't the neon lights i had on in that room and the running wash machine. Those were the only two thigns i can think of that were different, other than the tubes. Same outlet and everything. oh, there was one other thing, I put a handle on the top as the original handle was missing. Replaced it with the exact fender replacement. and still no back cover as of yet.

[52 Bill]

It doesn't really sound like acoustic feedback to me, more like radio static.

You said that the amp sat in a garage for a time, do you know if it was heated or left in the cold?

You said that you cleaned it up, but does that include cleaning tube sockets and the push on connectors on the pc board?

[wmupat79]

Sorry, I missed this last reply. It was left in the cold. I don't really even know if it had a garage door. There were leaves in the bottom, but I think it was against a wall. I did clean the push on connectors and blew out the tubes sockets. Not sure what else to clean on the sockets, if you could shed some light on that. In the past few months I wound up getting pretty busy and am just now getting back to this project.

[52 Bill]

Lately I've been using a round toothpick or a pointed wooden skewer that has been dipped into a bottle of the liquid form of DeoxIt. Twisting the skewer will lightly burnish the contact surfaces and with the DeoxIt applied without spraying, it doesn't get messy.