Bassman aa864 Random noise and squeal when all preamp tubes and PI pulled

[bmccowan]

Bravo on getting it fixed. I have received some Beltons that I think were fakes. But they worked ok, just super hard to insert the tube pins. Easy enough to test the sockets I think. After all, they simply connect the pin to the terminal, eh? You should be able to meter a dead short on each one of the pin locations, and open circuit between all other pin sockets. Not sure how to state that, but you probably get what I mean.

[Erik Aa]

The Beltons I bought were also supert tight on the tube pins. I was concerned I would damage the tubes when I plugged them in due to the pressure I had to apply.

[shooter]

occasionally solder will wick up into/on the pins and take the spring outta them

[bmccowan]

I've seen that happen, Shooter. On other peoples' builds of course. Hot iron and no loitering on the connection seems to prevent it.
Anyways, it'd be nice to know what the actual problem was, but we may never know.
I hope the amp sounds great.
Erik - I suggest you look to Doug's pages on building techniques and also to Sluckey's. There are some things you are doing that are making it hard on yourself. Following their advice and copying their techniques helped me a ton.