Power Tube Arcing

[Sleet]

I am back with a little more probing of the OT:

I read the resistances of the primary sides to the center tap:

170 ohm and 150 ohms respectively.

I checked the secondary and found it to read 0.8 ohms (8 ohm speaker impedence). Does this rule out the OT as a problem? If so where should I look to next? I would guess I should fire it up and read some voltages. One other thing I am a concerned about. I purchased a new set of EL-84's with the power tube sockets I replaced, but have not yet installed them for fear of possibly damaging them.

Thanks to everyone for your input so far, I am learning a lot here.

OT's are easy to test. Use your meter and make sure the caps are discharged. If you put the meter on DC volts and go from chassis(black lead) and (red lead) to pin 3 and verify low voltage there. Switch the meter to resistance and measure across the two wires going to the OT primaries that are hooked to pin 3 of each tube side. It should be around 70 to 140 ohms. Now locate the B+ wire on the primary of the OT and measure from it to each wire on pin 3 you just measured and it should be half of what you just measured before. If it is your tranny is almost certainly good. I haven't found one yet that passes that test and is bad. If it is bad it will read high resistance or OL on the meter. Also make sure the 250 ohm Cathode resistor is ok and the capacitor. If the cap has black around the positive side it could be bad and cause the amp not to sound.

[Jag]

If I understand this correctly, after replacing the sockets you have no more problems with arcing but you get no output when you send signal in? Also, when you standy by you hear a pop?

Are you sure you got the connections right when you replaced the sockets? Triple check that. Even if you wired everything correctly, it's not clear that you've verified the integrity of the connections from the OT secondary through to the actual speaker. There should be continuity (ie: reads dead short on a DMM) from the ground side of the secondary to the negative terminal on the speaker and from the applicable tap to the positive terminal on the speaker. If you initially get a good reading, try wiggling the associated wires, all the way from the OT to the speaker, and see if the reading changes while you're wiggling the wires. It shouldn't change. I'd pay particular attention to the jack you described as weak earlier.

EVERYTHING I suggested in that last paragraph should be done with the amp unplugged and the filter caps drained.

Also, you may have fixed the original problem but inadvertently buggered something else by accident. Check general areas you were working in very carefully for anything out of place, disconnected, shorted or otherwise damaged.

If/when you do fire it up to check for voltages, do so with the tubes out. That will save damaging the amp if you've miswired it or there is some other problem, unless you got it really wrong. The fact that it isn't blowing fuses anymore is probably good.