Hot Rod Deluxe - First issue after all these years - help needed

[Enzo]

OK, so the power stage is noisy. Now remove the power tubes one at a time. leaving the others in the amp. Leave V3 out still. If one of the power tubes is causing the noise, removing it should kill the noise. The other power tube would then work without making that noise. No, it won't hurt it to have a missing power tube. Might increase the hum some, but this is only testing. ignore the hum, just listen for the noise you are working on. That should tell you if a power tube is noisy. And if it makes noise without V3, there is not much left BUT the power tubes to make noise.

[Big Alex]

I took a look in the schematics and is there any chance that the plate load resistors of the phase inverter (R57, R58) could be deffective, assuming that I removed v3 and the problem continued?

Thanks in advance

[MWJB]

The problem would most likely stop when you removed V3 in this case. If one of the PI resistors had opened up you would have reduced output & a fuzzy tone, not necessarily excess noise.

A problem with the PI could be plate resistors could be verified with a voltage check at pins 1 & 6.

Referring to Enzo's suggestion earlier, does the noise follow a power tube or socket?

[Enzo]

My thinking may be fuzzy, but here it is. If you pull V3, there is no longer any current through the V3 plate loads and no V drop across them. SO even though they are still connected to the power tube grids by the coupling caps, I don't think they would be generating any noise under those conditions. SInce his noise continues without V3, I then look elsewhere instead of those plate loads.

I could be wrong.

[Big Alex]

Update

I have just received the brand new JJ´s .Just installed them and the cracking and popping are still there. Gonna take it to the tech tomorrow. Wish me luck!

[Big Alex]

Let me update you Folks.

HRDx is up and running . A ceramic power supply capacitor was the culprit.

I retubed it with JJ´s and biased around 66mv.

Nice and warm!!

Thanks for all the valuable inputs!