I am not against a kit but I would rather source my own caps so I know they are fresh and real not fake. Most kits do not contain all of the lytics for the radio just most of them. You never know how old the caps are or if they are real. If people put a kit together they have to buy in bulk to get the price down. So how long are they sitting on those caps. If they get a good deal on surplus or NOS caps they likely will not turn it down where I will.
I compared two kits on Ebay and one online for my Lincoln Radio and neither kit had the same number of caps or the same value of caps. On top pf that when I physically opened up my radio and got out a flash light about 1/2 of the listed values in the kits did not match my units capacitor values in 100% of the instances the voltage and capacitance in the kits listed contents was lower than the voltage and or capacitance of the parts in my radio. I took both covers off and spent an hour writing them all down 3 times over to make sure I did not miss one of make a mistake. Their where a few I could not read.
On top of that when I looked at various other radio's I ran into much the same in some cases it varied by the board used in a model other times the year, again by location of the factory and some was just routine production variation based on what was on the market and price point I am sure.
So I am not sure I have a lot of faith in kits especially if I was going to send a unit out instead of doing it myself. I only like top tier capacitors in my gear. When I can make them fit I like to use 3000, 5000 or 10,000 hour caps and 105°C or better. Sometimes space limitations will not allow it you have to use a 85°C or 1000 hour cap but not if I can help it. How many shops or kits do you think are going to use top tier caps, fresh, better than 85°C and better than 1000 hour rated? Do not get me started on ripple current and leakage etc....I am an audio geek more than rf geek and to me capacitors are too important to just chance to a kit or to someone else. Their is nothing I hate more than having to do a job twice or having to send a radio or other toy back to a shop because parts or labor did not make it past the warranty period. On top of that I did not want any 6.3V, 10V or 16V caps in the radio if I could help it. By looking at each cap and in some tight spaces measuring the available space I knew exactly what I could get to fit.
CB radio's are usually so crude and so large you could fit caps the size of egg's on the board and still kick the lid closed! LOL I do not mean that in a bad way either just mean they are more tolerant space wise. That said the older radio's tend to have a lot more caps in them than modern designs especially when talking about leaded electrolytic.
