Fender hot rod deluxe - reverb has gone :(

[fendertelemusik]

hey guys i bought my hot rod a year or two ago and have lost my receipt for the shop i bought it out of.

i had a gig the other night and as far as i know it was working but can't be sure as they had poor moniters and i could hardly hear myself play.

but ive just turned it on this morning and there is no reverb at all ive tried truning it to 12 and it sounds exactly like 0.

would this be something i could fix myself (no experience fixing amps but generally good at learnign and fixing things with a little trial and error).

or will i need to pay for some repairs thanks for any help

cheers kevin.

[NTBluesGuitar]

With the reverb, the good news is, you can start by checking the tank, and the connected plugs to the tank. If the reverb tank checks out okay, the other end of the reverb connection is hard wired to the PCB, and that's relatively easy to find, although not very common that it's a connection issue there.

If that isn't the issue, you'll run into needing to troubleshoot the circuit. Sometimes a corroded trace on the PCB causes all sorts of issues in the reverb area.

See if you can find a working Hot Rod Reverb tank to see if swapping tanks (relatively easy) solves the issue first. Replacement tanks aren't too hard to come by.

[phantomman]

Same thing happened to mine about three months ago -- turned out the reverb tank took a dump. Thankfully the warranty covered the repairs but it was somewhat disheartening as the amp was only two years old and has only seen minimum service. My amp guy says this is a pretty common failure among the HR line in general. Conversely, my one-owner 30-year old Twin Reverb has never so much as burped or farted. I guess what they say is true......they don't build 'em like they used to.

Best of luck

[FrankJohnson]

even if it is out of warranty - the tank should not cost more than $20-30 shipped if I remember right..........

[MikeM]

I've replaced quite a few over the years. Usually one of the wires breaks off at the transducer or a spring breaks.

[jomtones]

same thing seems to have happened to mine! ... distortion channel went years ago too :/ ... but that didn't bother me too much, never really liked the sound and lack of EQ for it, just use pedals to drive it.

lack of reverb is a bit more of a hassle though - if a spring broke would that totally kill the reverb sound? ... weird.