Fixing Fender Hot Rod Deluxe PR-246 (solder cracking)

Fender Hot Rod Delux is a 40 Watt hybrid guitar amplifier. This particular one had a problem of a cracking noise. There was a normal sound coming out of the speaker but with annoying full volume cracks, while playing cracks happened more often then in a standstill. 

The owner told me that he wanted to by a new set of vacuum tubes because he noticed that he can cause this disturbance by touching the left most 12AX7A tube. I took a look at the tube and noticed that it is quite difficult to take it out because tube sockets are fitted very tight.

After opening a back of the implement I took a look at a PCB and noticed that there actually was a solder crack on the pin of tube socket. The crack is visible in the center of this picture:

I heated this broken solder joint with soldering iron, added some new solder and problem was fixed. As a precaution I reworked the same way all pins of this tube socket because if one solder joint was broken than another one was just waiting to crack.

Lesson learned:

1. Be careful with replacing tubes - they are fragile and rest of an amplifier is too.

2. PCB holes diameter for this tube socket are in my opinion a little bit to big giving pins possibility to cause mechanical tension while replacing tubes. Sockets have no mechanical support except for solder joints - shame on you Leo Fender!