hey man i ran across this while looking for an owners manual for this amp. cool. anyway:i had the same problem. heres what i did. i got a 30 watt soldering iron from radio shack. took the "head" out of cabinet and soldered all the terminals that belonged to the knobs only. be careful of the switches. if you wind up soldering those terminals together, youll have a ground problem like I did. But I was able to unsolder them so it works. This I did last night after it sitting up for quite a few months.
What happens is the solder points crack from either being used alot, being slammed around carelessly or the weather factors, i.e. humidity, extreme cold or heat.
Dont need to hold the iron there long as it wont take but a second or two to melt the solder. you dont need to put more solder on terminals. good luck man. i hope this helps you.
ATTENTION: THERE ARE ONLY TWO WIRES I HAD TO REMOVE. THE ARE THE LEFTMOST BLACK AND WHITE WIRES IF THE POWER CORD IS ON YOUR RIGHT. ALL OF THE KNOBS SHOULD BE FACING YOU. IF YOU ONLY REMOVE THESE, YOU NEED TO BE SURE THAT YOU PUT THEM BACK ON RIGHT. (I did this and wound up with a weird buzz/hum and no sound of guitar.)
ATTENTION #2: UPLUG THIS BABY AND LET IT SIT FOR AN HOUR BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT TAKING AMP OUT CHASSIS.(They say a capacitor can hold an electric charge for up to 30 minutes. Something like 50,000 volts of electricity. I dont know how true this is but I have been shocked by the inside of an amp after I let it sit for only 5 minutes.)
There was enough length on the other two black and white wires and the red ones to just flip it over onto the edge of the chassis.
Its worth it do it. It s a good amp in my opinion. Dont let it slip away. It doesnt take long. Only took about 1 hour. I took longer as I didnt realize the amp was going to have the weird noise. I had already put it back together before I turned it back on.
ill check back here once in a while to see what you did. let me know if it works for you!