Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Repair Kit (also Blues Deluxe, Hot Rod Deville and Blues Deville)

£9.50£39.75

Description

Hot Rod Deluxe repairs are the most common jobs on my bench. I’ve fixed lots of these amps (see here). The Hot rod Deluxe/Deville and Blues Deluxe/Deville have a number of common faults, all of which are easy to address.

PLEASE NOTE: these items will often appear as ‘available for back order’. I hold a small stock level for this site and a large stock level for my working repair shop, where I see many HRDs each month. I usually do have stock in the repair workshop that can be transferred to fulfil your order.  Back ordered items will usually ship within a week.

Please note: For really badly heat damaged HRD boards, I’d recommend using the Hot Rod Deluxe LT Supply Ultimate Fix Kit.

1. LT voltage supply:

Symptoms:

Crackling, Channel switching issues, Sound cutting out, Humming, Reverb not working, Loss of Power, Nasty Distortion.

Why?

This is far and away the biggest problem with HRD and BD versions 1-3 and counts for about 65% of the units I see. The amps use a Resistor/Zener/cap combination to create an LT supply. This overheats and desolders itself, often causing some degree of PCB damage. You can see just how hot the amp gets on the thermal images on my repair website). The difficulty of the repair depends upon how long it’s been left unfixed – in worse cases the PCB has been more damaged by consistent overheating and requires some degree of retracking. The footswitch supply occasionally has similar issues. The way to fix this is really simple – just use resistors and zener diodes with preformed leads that hold the components away from the PCB.

2. Filter capacitors (caps).

Symptoms:

Crackling, Sound cutting out, Humming, Loss of Power, Nasty Distortion.

Why?

I’m not an advocate of recapping an amp for the sake of it, but Fender use unreliable filter caps which have a tendency to fail, this is probably a good 25% of remaining failures. They don’t *always* fail though, despite the forum claims. Whether they’re the cause of the problem or not I always recommend replacement as it’s worth doing whilst the amp is open to make the amp as reliable as possible, but in some cases you may prefer to decline to replace unless they’re the root cause of the problem. You can also upgrade a Hot rod Deluxe PSU to a Hot Rod Deville spec for a reliability upgrade. The tone remains the same, but the stress on the caps is reduced.

3. Phase inverter anode resistors (Fix Everything Kit only)

Symptoms:

Loss of Power, nasty distortion

These have a tendency to go open circuit, but not all that often. I replace them with higher rated parts. These don’t often fail, but I put them in the ‘fix everything’ repair kit as a free gift. I know, it’s like Christmas came early.

Contents:

Note that in some cases, the RubyCon BXC ow BXW caps will be substituted for other high reliability parts such as other high spec RubyCon or Nichicon CY caps.

Hot Rod Deluxe repair kit and Blues Deluxe RI ‘Fix Everything’ repair kits include:

  • 1x 47u 500V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 3x 22u 500V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 4x Keld Ampworks Axial/Radial adapter boards.
  • 2x 5W LT supply Dropper resistors, preformed
  • 2x 5W Zener Diodes, preformed
  • 1x Foot switch dropper resistor, preformed

Hot Rod Deville repair kit and Blues Deville ‘Fix Everything’ repair kits include:

  • 2x 100u 350V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 2x 47u 350V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 2x 22u 500V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 6x Keld Ampworks Axial/Radial adapter boards.
  • 2x 5W LT supply Dropper resistors, preformed
  • 2x 5W Zener Diodes, preformed
  • 2x phase inverter anode resistors (Free gift, isn’t it exciting!)

Blues Deluxe 1993 ‘Fix Everything’ repair kits include:

  • 2x 100u 350V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 2x 100u 350V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 2x 22u 500V high reliability RubyCon BXC/BXW Cap
  • 6x Keld Ampworks Axial/Radial adapter boards.
  • 2x 5W LT supply Dropper resistors, preformed
  • 2x 5W Zener Diodes, preformed
  • 1x Foot switch dropper resistor, preformed

The LT supply kit

  • 2x 5W LT supply Dropper resistors, preformed
  • 2x 5W Zener Diodes, preformed
  • 1x Foot switch dropper resistor, preformed

Instructions and Safety

  • The Instructions are not included in the package, please download them here. These instructions are for the Hot Rod Deluxe only. Builders of the Deville packages or the Blues Deluxe should be able to understand what to do for their amps by looking at the Deluxe instructions and the appropriate schematics.
  • This repair involves working on a unit that can contain hazardous voltages up to 500VDC. The hazardous voltages can be present when the amplifier is turned off.
  • DO NOT attempt this repair unless you’re absolutely certain you can do so safely and produce a safe working product at the end.
  • At Keld Ampworks I can fix your amplifier reliably and safely. I have repaired countless Fender HRD and BD amps and I’ve never seen one I couldn’t fix! I would be happy to take this job on for you. Unmodified amps are simpler to repair.

Additional information

Weight N/A
Dimensions 350 × 250 × 20 mm
Model

Hot Rod Deluxe or Blues Deluxe RI, Hot Rod Deville or Blues Deville, Blues Deluxe 1993

Kit

LT Supply / Footswitch only, Filter caps only, Fix everything!

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