Just Picked Up A '73 Traynor YGL-3 - What Should I Get Done?

Honestly, I'd go ahead and replace those electrolytics anyway. Sure, they might sound fine, and they might be working great, but the fact is, they are 36 years old, which is well beyond their life expectancy, and if they go, they can take other, less replaceable parts with them. Keep the originals in a safe place along with the original glass for posterity.

Otherwise, all I'd do would be to find a place to play it louder more often!

I'm pretty sure that post zombie apocalypse, Traynor amps will be a form of currency, being that they're the only thing that the surviving humans won't have to service.

 

Don't those run EL34's?

Definitely have the filter caps replaced. They may work now, and even sound fine, but its important maintenance.

 

Yes, 4 EL34s. Traynors of that era came stock with Philips UK tubes (Mullard), they may be better than any new tubes you could buy. Check the bias and change the electrolytics first and see if you like it. BTW, the build quality of those amps is typically better just about anything in that era aside from maybe Sunn and Hiwatt.

 

Nice amp--lots of power and lots of head room.

They have great transformers!
As noted above--get the caps etc
That amp is a beast!
If I had one and money to burn, I might have Fuchs do the "Dumble" thingy to it!
I wouldn't spend $1,500 for that right now--just an idea!
It's the perfect platform for that mod . . .

 

On the other hand I have had two local techs tell me if the amp is quiet and the bass and treble sound good and they amp sounds robust you can hold off on a cap job for a while. I am going to do my Fender eventually but for now I am going to get the caps and just have them on hand as I can afford them. Even some here have said if the amp works fine just keep an eye on it.

 

Both "techs" should never be visited again. Of course, they'll make more dough fixing an amp that fails... especially since repair guys are hard to find in even most metropolitan areas.

An amp older than 30 years and they told you that?! What does "for a while" mean? If its new to you, how can you describe bass and treble sounding "good?" It could've sounded fantastic before and now is on its way out, but that was 10 years ago before you even owned it.

Let a filter cap fail and you might have killed an excellent OT, maybe a pair/quad of cool old power tubes. The title "tech" is thrown around too loosely and too often.

JCMNelson, have a repair man replace all of the electrolytic filter caps. 2 prong AC cords need to be 3 prong. That's all you need to do... its not too expensive (not as expensive as a dead OT, that's for sure).

 

Electrolytic caps need to be replaced because they use an electrlyte liquid to function. Over time this fluid dries out.

Its not just a matter of temperature, but also time and use.

Seeing as how they're used in the high voltage filtering stages it can mean bad news when one fails.

 

I don't know that I would replace the preamp tubes outright. They take far less abuse than power tubes and can be viable for a lot longer. Definitely experiment with swapping the preamp tubes between the old ones and your new ones.

 

Johnny I have had some here tell me too that while the caps should be replaced if the amp is working fine keep an eye on it. I do plan on getting the caps and replace them when I get the caps and the amp starts to get noisy right now there is NO HUM and it is working fine. If nothing else I may replace the filter caps anyway when I get them.

 

Johnny both these techs have been in business for years and both have a good reputation. I called both as to get more than one opinion. Plus a member here who I will not name told me that while the caps should be replaced if the amp is not misbehaving I could get by for a while though a cap job probably will make a difference. I will say this back before the internet guys used their amps until there was an issue as there was not all this information out there for all to see. Many of them amps never did fail. Only thing I ever did to my SuperReverb is put new output tubes in it and that was well over 20 years of steady gigging.

 

I'd compare the old tubes to the new ones and use whichever sound best, because those old tubes might not have a ton of hours on them, and are very possibly great ones!

I have a YGM-3 with a single 12" speaker, and the original speaker was a dog, but it had a much smaller magnet than the ones in your pictures. I replaced mine with a Eminence that Paul Honeycutt had sitting around, and the improvement was startling! A few months later, I got a deal on a Celestion G12H-80 (alas, discontinued) that was even better.

Enjoy!

Tim

 

I'll put my opinion somewhere between Johnny's and those of the techs.

When filter caps wear out, they start to make the amp sound crappy. My Marshall was 20 years old when I got it, and had a very loose low end response. Replacing all the electrolytics (including those in the bias supply) fixed that right up.

Now, if an amp does indeed sound fine, the likelihood of a cap failure out of the blue is low, but I have to imagine that it's not as unlikely when the caps are 30 years old than it would be if the caps were new.

So yeah, I would still replace the caps, but I wouldn't necessarily quarantine the amp. If it's not exhibiting any obvious problems, it's not that much more of a ticking time bomb than a new amp - but I'd still consider it to be pushing your luck if you started cranking the thing regularly.

 

Ben that is pretty much what I am thinking. I already talked to the tech about getting the caps ordered at least the caps under the metal cover the filter caps fo a start. When I get them I will replace them. Right now the amp sounds fine the bass sounds good but when I get the caps I will replace them.

 

If the power tubes are original, they may be better than much of what can be found today (as a previous poster said). While I agree that the electrolytics should be replaced as a precaution, do the power tubes really need to be replaced if they're still good? I may need to know this in case I find a Traynor to get me through the zombie apocalypse.