Install replacement amp in M101

[jwhite1362]

What is a reasonable time of labor to install a replacement amplifier in a M101? Also, why are transformers on some M100 amps larger and silver and smaller and black on others?

[David Anderson]

Hammond had been winding their own transformers (painted silver) in-house since about 1948, but apparently decided to outsource transformer production to professional transformer manufacturers around 1962. Since M-100s were introduced in 1961, only early M-100s would have silver power transformers.

[jwhite1362]

Thank you, David!

[Organfella]

To replace the amplifier with an identical one may take as little as ten minutes.

Nico

[jwhite1362]

To replace the amplifier with an identical one may take as little as ten minutes.

Nico

Thank you for this reply! Is 4.5 hours to completely change out amplifiers (including all connections and tubes) in an M101 the normal amount of time to perform this operation?

[enor]

Thank you for this reply! Is 4.5 hours to completely change out amplifiers (including all connections and tubes) in an M101 the normal amount of time to perform this operation?

Definitely not. If by "amplifiers" you mean both the main amp and the reverb amp, I would say an hour is plenty of time for swapping them... actually, half an hour is a reasonable time for swapping them but often an hour is minimum billable time.

[jwhite1362]

A service tech installed a refurbished main amp (nothing done to reverb amp) in my M101 and 4.5 hours was the time spent doing the disconnections/reconnections (including tube inspections) and it's still not completely hooked up. It seems this job is taking a little too long and I've got misgivings about the final results.

[ShadyJoe]

A service tech installed a refurbished main amp (nothing done to reverb amp) in my M101 and 4.5 hours was the time spent doing the disconnections/reconnections (including tube inspections) and it's still not completely hooked up. It seems this job is taking a little too long and I've got misgivings about the final results.

That sounds ridiculous. Was he replacing parts in the amp? Capacitors and resistors?

[enor]

A service tech installed a refurbished main amp (nothing done to reverb amp) in my M101 and 4.5 hours was the time spent doing the disconnections/reconnections (including tube inspections) and it's still not completely hooked up. It seems this job is taking a little too long and I've got misgivings about the final results.

Assuming the wiring harnesses were all intact and it was just a matter of desoldering the old amp and then installing the new amp - that's plain ridiculous. If it includes troubleshooting because of other faults (that were assumed to be faults in the amp but turned out to be something else when a known good amp was installed) then one can easily start running up time.