Well, you were right. I found a donor radio with an authentic set of finals and swapped them over. The known good radio dropped in power to less than half and the 448 got the known good original NEC set. Problem solved. Thanks guys for your support. I learned a good lesson. DO NOT TRUST CHEAP CHINESE MADE TRANSISTORS!There are 3. Part of the 34mhz AM and SSB oscillator cct. T6, T7,T8. T7 has no inner cap. The other 2 do. Sams doesnt show the values on the schematic and the parts list doesnt show any tuning coils. T7 Feeds T8. There are 2 tuning caps in that circuitry. These culprits are all located under the RF tin covers upfront. A fellow also told me about fake transistors. I knew that could be a possibility but had doubts because of my hfe findings. 150 is dang good gain for a final. How can they fake this? Anyhow, I do have a bunch if different known working ssb rigs that I can temporarily borrow the finals from. Before I do that I will test these possible fakes in the known good sets. If they drop in power well that answers part of the problem. Then I will move the good set to the 448 and see what happens. Stay tuned y'all!
73s!
73s