Small Clone DIY different distortion problem

[studiostud]

Hey guys,

I just finished a Small Clone from Tonepad and I'm having some weird distortion issues.  The distortion i get is there even with soft strumming of the strings and doesn't seem to be affected at all by tweaking the bias trimpot.  Something interesting though.  After reading some other similar threads, I tried using a 12V power supply.  I swapped the pos/neg leads from the 9V battery over to the 12V power supply and clean as a whistle.... for about 40 seconds and then the distortion came back.  I tried it then with the amp still on and switched back to a full 9V battery.  Again clean for a short while and then distortion returned.  Could this be a problem with any of the capacitors?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Jeff

[WLTerry]

Did you check the transistor and diode D1 orientation?

[Mark Hammer]

Whenever time is involved, there's a pretty good chance an electrolytic cap will be involved.

[studiostud]

I checked the direction and the polarity of the transistors and both diodes and both seem to be fine.  I guess the next step is the electros.  Any other ideas?

[studiostud]

UPDATE:  I also tried switching out the JRC4558, just in case something on it was bad, but no luck.  Unfortunately, now is the time to start checking components that I don't have in sockets...

[studiostud]

Question:  Could the problem be with any of the other caps besides the electros?  Since it's a time thing where the fuzz goes away for a short while if I disconnect and reconnect the +9v lead and then returns shortly after, I wasn't sure if that is more specifically an electro problem or if it could be a general capacitor issue...

[studiostud]

::WORKING::     After swapping out all the electros with no success I decided to take a closer look at the PCB and I stumbled upon a rogue solder bridge on one of the legs of the 4558.  Works and sounds beautiful now.  Thanks for all your help guys!