VintageKustom.com: Repairing Kustom Amps

Wed, 20 May 2015 23:16

eaestes
Messages: 4
Registered: May 2015
Location: Dallas

Junior Member

I bought a Kustom K200A-2 head and twin 15" bottom. The bottom has two holes with no tubes or chrome rings. I have the stomp box but it has no wire. I believe it may be one of the models referred to as a "Frankenstein". I know the guy who purchased it in 1965 new and recently sold it to me. It's very near pristine on the outside with operational exceptions. The reverb box is in tact and the transducers read 174 and 181 ohms on the primary side. Pink foam was stuffed in it for some reason. It has:
(1) PC302A/B stack for Reverb and Trem-Vib
(2) PC 102 Preamps/tone PCBs
(1) PC 602
(1) PC 502
(1) PC 702 Driver board

The amp is super quiet and works well other than the lack of reverb and trem/vib. Investigations revealed the reverb and trem boards were bypassed and the foot switch no longer wired. It was jailbraked for an unknown reason, but I intend to put it back to normal and see whats what.

The XLR connector was converted to allow two added 1/4" phone plugs to go into one XLR. The blue wire on the bright input was removed and the blue wire from the reverb unit put as the input, bypassing the reverb and trem boards. A 3 prong power cord was put in without removing the grounding cap, and has no strain relief other than a knot in the cable. I have some questions:

Is this a Frankenstein unit?
Is there a way to test the secondary of the transducers on the reverb board?
Is the tremelo/vib connected to ground to enable it? or disable it?
Same question again for the reverb.

I have a Tek scope, DVMs, signal generator, and other misc test equipment.

Thanks,

Andy

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