amen

One final comment. I emailed Nik and he gave me a great little tip, that I thought I would pass along, so no one else goes through the same frustration I did. He said that they cable tie the relays right to the board, then mount them to the chassis. Seems simple, and academic, but it works like a champ. I have been playing the amp for a good two hours with no glitches.

The amp is finally up and running . Once again, thanks to all of you who took the time to help me out on this project. After nearly rebuilding the whole amp, I plugged the guitar in it, and started to check connections with a chopstick. Turns out that the overdrive relay wasn't making a good connection with the socket. When I would push on the relay the amp came on in overdrive, and when I let off of it the sound would dissapear. I am going to put it back together, and retension the socket for the relay. Thanks again for all the help and support. You guys are a great bunch.
Cheers!!

I thought I did, but I could have missed something. I will check that again. Yes both switches are down in the pedal mode.

Here is the update . I basically spent the whole weekend going through the circuit, again checking all the voltages, and continuety. Everything is coming up as it should. I rewired V2 just to make sure all the connections were good, and also checked the relay boards to make sure I am getting 12 volts to both of them. I purchased a new relay for the overdrive board, installed it, fired it up and I am getting the same thing. The normal channel works great, barely any output from the overdrive channel unless it is cranked up. By the way, the PAB is working, so it has to be in the overdrive relay board. I moved the relay on the board with a chopstick, while it was in overdrive mode and I got a very loud pop, and then it blew the small 4amp fuse. The 1A fuse is still in tact. I'm beating my head against the wall, any ideas?Could the socket for the relay on the relay board be bad? I checked all my connections on top, and underneath on that board, and all seem to be good. I even reflowed the solder joints on it.

Well I checked all the conections and solder joints with the MM in continuity mode, and all seem to be good. I'm thinking maybe the problem might be in the overdrive relays, or the voltage regulator. Like a dummy a broke a pin off of one of the relays, when I was checking the conections, so can't do anything until I get that replaced. I'll report back, and again thanks for the help so far, and keep it coming if you think of anything. Cheers

Here are the pics of the amp. Not the order I wanted but oh well.. I know I am missing something stupid.

Cool. I think I will start there and see what I get. Thanks so much so far with the help. It is greatly appreciated. By the way, I have been checking out your builds, and they are extremely well done!!

Yes I will get some pics up asap. I went back and did some checking, and I now have the normal channel working. I think it was a grounding issue, but now I do not have an overdrive channel. Again, I am getting some signal, but it is very very weak, and extremely distorted. Just to make sure, I went through all the preamp tubes again, and made sure they were all good. So now where do I start to troublehsoot? Pics coming

The clean channel is doing the same thing. I have changed the tubes also. Do the voltages look to be good?

Hello to all. I am having some issues with my 183 build and any help would be greatly appreciated. I am getting some sound out of the amp, but it is very week and sounds like a bad fuzz pedal. I have done the usual checking tubes, and making sure inputs are wired correctly. Have gone through the layout and wiring several times. I plugged a cord in the power amp input, and I am getting a good signal from that.
Here are my voltage readings.
B+ around 458
V1 and V2 high voltage-198v, grids pin 2&7 is 0v, cathodes 1.8v
V3 pin 1 and 6 300v, pins 2 & 7 38v,  and pins 3 & 8 62v
I am assuming my problem is in the preamp section.
I can get more info if needed. Any ideas from the above information?
Thanks to all in advance.

Hi Henry,
thanks for the headsup. Sorry I didn't check this earlier as I purchased one already. I'll keep you in mind for my next build. Great prices on those trannys.

Wyatt, thanks so much for the great info. I really appreciate it.. I have used the classic tone transformers in other builds, and they have worked great.

Hey to all! New member here, and want to say what a great forum this is. I just recently bought a OTS 183 100 watt amp kit that did not come with the output transformer. I know gabkits sells the MM OT, but I am looking for something less expensive, and was wondering which OT will work with this amp? Magnetic componants has a twin reverb OT with the 4,8, and 16ohm secondarys, and I was hoping this one would work OK. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance