'70s Fender SilverFace Champ Recap and Mod

--Augustine Ortiz, Jr.--
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Introduction

When I started playing guitar, a Fender Champ was my first guitar amp. It is from the late 70's and is from the SilverFace Era. It was given to me with a Japanese Electra Les Paul copy. The Champ had a blown speaker so it was replaced with a 10-inch speaker that didn't fit in the chassis so it sat on top of the amp. That worked for a while but I just played the guitar ampless.

Anyway, over time I learned the value of tube amps, replaced the speaker with: SPEAKER MODEL HERE, re-tubed it, and started using it for practice and small gigs. This amp can keep up with a light drummer and when cranked you get a nice smooth overdrive.

Well now realising it is well over 20 years old and did spend a lot of time sitting around, I figure I should replace the filter caps before I loose a transformer. Then while I was at it, do some minor mods.

Research

Well after opening up the amp, I noticed that it doesn't really match the schematics available. But they are still useful since it mostly matches. After looking around on the Fender Forum I found that these series of Champs (AA764) have still changed over the years. Plus with power changes since the '70s and such, these amps are almost a totally different animal.