Recently bought this radio. Changed out Ecaps and caps today.
Discovered a shielded wire that begins at pin 3 of the AF Amp tube 6SC7 and is soldered to chassis at this tube, then to chassis at Ecap can and snakes around to 2nd IF 6SK7 and is grounded to chassis at this tube. The end of this wire is not terminating anywhere. Can not see it on my schematic. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Schematic: http://www.nostalgiaair.org/Resources/868/M0008868.htm

This open ended wire sounds like C38. A 'gimmick' capacitor which would loosely couple the BFO to the IF. You will see it in the schematic labelled 'gimmick' with a shielded wire symbol. In the parts list on the last page you will see it described as such.
I believe that it should wrap around the IF coil lead to IF tube a couple of turns. A very small capacitance, just enough for the BFO to color the incoming signal.

It's a " Gimmik " .. A loose coupling device for just a few PF coupling. The wire is open at one end.
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Thanks gentlemen. I am not too savvy when it comes shortwave. Decided to take this project on for the winter. After recapping I have pretty decent SW reception on a short wire but AM is very poor.Not much coming in and at very low volume. I have not aligned yet so hope that helps.
Thanks again.

If your Hallicrafters works decent on SW, but AM is weak.
Check out the AM band antenna coils, RF coils and trimmers adjustments.

Thanks Warren. I will check them out. What about these IF cans. How do you get the cans off. The clips at the base of the cans come off easy enough but how do you get can to release at top? I have been reading on forum about caps at top of IF's. Figured I need to look at these.

Why do you need to look at them? The IF xfmrs can be adjusted without removing the can.

I would leave those IF cans alone for now. The clips only release the can at the chassis. Then you have to un-solder the wires. The bottom of the can is crimped to hold the base and the coils inside. If later you think you may have the silver migration problem, then remove the cans.

OK, thanks for the info on the IF's. Managed to get this unit aligned this week end and it is receiving pretty good except band 4 does not seem to have much going on. I ran about a 60' longwire outside but it is at fence ht. so not the greatest but much better than basement wire. Any feedback on the high band would be appreciated.

Replacing the 6SA7 with a 6SB7Y will improve the high-frequency performance.

OK, got the tube switched out. Not any different. I am going to go back over the alignment again. Also I did not changeout any resistors so proper voltage may be lacking. Got some checking to do.
Thanks for the tube tip.

You may find some resistors have drifted sky-high. My 100K screen dropping resistors measured in at 24 meg!
Wirewounds usually hold their value well over the decades, cheap carbon composition ones can be a problem.

Thanks Walter. I concentrated on the converter circuit and the plate and grid 2 voltage is about 40% lower than it should be. This led me to the 4w resistors in parallel coming off the the rectifier and it looks like someone pulled an incorrect resistor. Rather than 2-24k's there is a 24k and a 240 ohm in parallel. I am thinking that this sure would cut the voltage down. So I have to order a 4watt or better 12k resistor and this should fix the band 4 issue.