Warren

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions. I was told the doorknob caps were a bit off when I bought it, so I got a couple of NOS ones
and put them in. They arent much better but are original Sprague 20KV of the same kind. Apparently they are the "padder"caps in the tank.

Last night I wanted to get some voltage readings on the screen so opened the back, and had trouble. Realized that a metal tab I bent back into place on the cover to help guide the long screws to the front, interferes with one of the tube anodes when you have the linear on its side, which I so to make it easier to get the cover off. I was too late as the tab hit the anode, cracked the glass right off the top - so am down (1) tube.
Fortunately the owner threw in (2) spares of the same kind, Eimac 4-400A's. These are identical except the plate shape is a rounded crown
not like the others with have a sharp square crown. I read the sharp square crowns dissipate heat better, but for now will have to go with what I have.

When I powered up things seemed ok then a loud HUMM from one of the xfmrs prompted me to shut down. They are using an octal socket populated with (2) diodes in place of V104 and it had shorted. That supplies volts to the VR75 neon regulator tube that I believe puts the standby bias on J102 so that when you short the "block" to "grid" pins the tube has some bias. I have read that not having the block
pin tied causes stress on the tubes, as per this post:

http://www.qth.net/pipermail/johnson...il/001006.html

So that could be what happened, somehow I was operating in the wrong state and overloaded the output line of VR104. I replaced both diodes,
and powered up briefly to see all the tubes lit up again.....so all was ok. Didnt have the bias plug in but the test was very brief as to not load things down too long. That article does say the version II placed a resistor on the control to ensure proper bias always, but as its a value for the new kinds of tubes, I am not 100% sure that would be the ideal value to put in my version.