Bill_G wrote:I wouldn't even try. If anything, scrub it up, give it some paint, and try to make it shine, but don't try to make it work.
Way back in my high School days, I ran across one of these radios. Motorola was really proud of these as they were the very first mobile radios they ever made. They took on the nick name of the "Dog House" radios because of the shape of the cover that went over them. There was a box for the receiver and one for the transmitter. The unit I had was using loctal tubes.
The reason Bill is saying not to plug the power up to the radio is because all the electrolytic capacitors in it are probably all dried out. Putting voltage to them will probably cause them to explode and really stink up the room ,and house.
I had an old military 12 volt power supply and did this to it. It had 4 round holes where it would mount onto a vehicle mount over the guide pins about 3/8 inch in dia. When I applied power, the entire power supply launched itself about 6 inches off the floor like a rocket jet coming out of those 4 holes. It put 4 neat round black marks on the plywood floor where the supply started out from. I opened up the windows to vent the stink. My mother yelled up to me on the second floor to ask what I had just done. i turned over the supply and took off the bottom cover. The whole inside of the chassis was filled with pieces of what looked like aluminum foil that had been through a mulcher. The smell was even worse now that I had let the air get to the bottom side of the power supply. I put the bottom cover back on and took the whole stinky mess outside to the trash can.
So a word to the wise, if the radio is old, replace all the electrolytic capacitors before applying any power to them. Save yourself the chore of trying to clean up the gooey mess inside the radio. Save yourself the un-pleasant ability to get the chance to see how bad one of these exploded capacitors really smells. Then comes the problem of finding a replacement capacitor.