jdsjw13":16qyvqan said:
Hey guys,
Just picked up a new Renegade head and the cooling fan doesn't work. Contacted Nate at Egnater and he is sending me a new fan and said I should be able to replace it myself. Let's just say I'm not very handy and my tinkering skills are more than questionable. That said, I took off the back cover and it looks like I'm going to have to remove the chassis from the head to be able to get to the fan. Is this difficult to do? Anyone have any pointers and/or advice I should know before I try and do this myself....like how to actually do it? It's a brand new amp so I don't want to screw anything up.....Thanks in advance to any responses!!
SAFETY WARNING -- UNPLUG YOUR AMP AND LET IT SIT FOR A DAY OR SO BEFORE OPENING IT UP. SOME MAY ARGUE YOU CAN SAFELY WORK ON AN AMP AFTER BEING UNPLUGGED FOR FIVE MINUTES, BUT THERE'S ENOUGH POWER IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE AMP (THE CAPACITORS, IN PARTICULAR) WHICH CAN STAY IN THERE A LONG TIME. Merely playing his guitar with a messed up amp killed former Yarbird Keith Relf. I don't mean to scare you off of this, just don't mess around with the inside of a guitar amp. I pulled the chassis in mine and nothing bad happened, but I was very careful not to poke around inside the amp, and I let it discharge for more than 24 hours before I worked on it.
Now that that's over, it's really easy to remove the chassis. There are some phillips head screws on the top (and sides, maybe?) which need to be removed. With the amp unplugged, take all those exterior screws out and put them somewhere you can find them (ziploc bags are great for this purpose). Before you pull the chassis out, look inside the chassis, you'll see the wires connecting the amp to the fan. I unbundled them, and ended up just decouping the plastic connector so there were no physical connections between the chassis and the head (note that the fan is screwed into the underside of the top panel of the amp -- that's why you have to disconnect it before pulling the chassis). Then very carefully pull the chassis out from the housing of the amp.
What I'm not quite clear on (b/c I've contemplated replacing the fan -- it's not a big deal but it's pretty loud) is how you're supposed to replace it even with the chassis pulled. The thing is clearly installed at the factory before they put the panels together. Once they're together, there's not much room to get in there, remove the screws and whatever else you're supposed to do. Let me know how that goes for you.
While you're at it, why not shoot over to Eurotubes and get a fresh set of 12AX7s to drop into your amp? I did it and it really brought the OD side of my Renegade to life!
Cheers,
Fester2k
