Fender Excelsior Mods for anyone who cares

[Modern Saint]

After getting one, the thoughts of mods start going through your head. The interesting part about it is that mods for me are not really to rebuild and amp but more to improve the sound or tone without much modification. After exploration I have come upon several mods that can be done on the amp.

1) Speaker Upgrade

This upgrade is mostly for the initial release of the Excelsior. Replace the speaker with a Eminence Legend 1518 Speaker to improve output volume and improve bottom end.

http://www.eminence.com/speakers/speaker-detail/?model=Legend_1518

*Just a note: The Excelsior Pro has the Eminence Legend relabled with a Fender sticker

Also available is a 15" Weber Vintage Chicago OEM type speaker, based on a 1959 Jensen.

https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/15f150a.htm

2) Tubes

Excelsior come with tubes made in China - you be the judge. From what I have read, some models come with Groove Tubes.

3) Tone Control mod

The stock Excelsior's tone is a switch and your choices are "Bright" and "Deep". Replacing the 470K resistor with a 500K Pot should give the control the sweep point from end to end. The cap values can be changed as well if needed.

4) Tremolo Mod

Resistor components can be changed to increase the speed as well as an insulated jack installed for a remote switch.

5) Output Transformer mod

The TO20 from my readings is the tranny to replace in this unit. It is a custom would Heyboer transformer for Allen Amps and is really for a Blues Junior upgrade.

http://billmaudio.com/wp/?page_id=545

If you are interested in hearing or reading about some of these mods, Bill M makes kits that you can purchase from him if needed. Bill also has mods for Fender Blues Jr's and Princeton Reverb.

http://billmaudio.com/wp/

 

[Tig]

Thx, in case I get one down the road.

 

[Kerouac]

But can I install it without dying?

 

[BoomBoomBigelow]

#ampmods
Nice info Saint! Those are all sensible, cheap and relatively easy.

 

[Modern Saint]

Can't believe that it has been a year since I bought mine and after several gigs with the blues bands and the Tom Petty project.

When I first got the unit I was ready to perform the following mods:

1) The speaker mod - wasn't necessary as I lucked out an bought a used Pro which has the upgraded speaker.

2) Tubes - Preamp 12AX7's were replaced with Tung Sol's and that sweetened up the tone. Did not change output section yet. I have the tubes but the original tubes are decent sounding and I didn't feel the need to replace at this time.

Well I finally got around to performing the tone mod. I chose to do it at this point since my on/off switch was having problems and needed to be replaced. I bought the tone pot (500K) pot from Mojotone the last time I bought some parts for other projects so it was just a matter of performing the task. While I don't have detailed pics, it is an easy mod as it only requires moving 3 wires to the pot. The hardest part about the mod was creating the hole for the pot. I used a reamer to create a round hole sized to fit. Installed the pot and then soldered wires. The tone mod offers you a tone sweep range from 'Deep' to 'Bright' which now gives some variation previously not available. I also changed my amps controls to Chicken Knobs and as you can see my tone setting is now set to my needs.