OMFG! Beer works! The Gain pot is touching the metal LED bezel! When I unscrewed the nut of the gain pot and flex the pcb it pops. When engaged its is obvious, but when bypassed, it pops, but doesn't effect the level! Smoke'em if you gottem!
Forgot to mention that I messed up and drilled the output jack hole to 1/2" by not paying attention. I thought I could fix it by putting a washer on both sides of the hole, so maybe the jack is not making a ground connection and thus the drop in signal, but the bypass is good and strong, so I'm...
Very weird. I thought I had it fixed. I put resoldered the battery clip wires, tightened all the nuts and same thing...big volume drop. This was with no battery attached, but clip installed.