[morzh]

Well... it's working now.
What you did was you bypassed the filament of the 7A8, soldering in and out wires to the same pin.
What confused you (and me, for a couple of hours) was that the IF did get through, which it did due to the parasitic coupling the inside the tube.
What exascerbated the confusion was that the tubes whose heaters were visible did glow, and so did the pilot lamp, so we did not think there was anything wrong as typically with series connected filaments nothing glows or everything blows up.

So....it receives now. Has distortion, don't know if it is alignment or speaker, but voice is ok, music when loud is distorted, but I let you figure that one out, if it needs be.
But the amp and oscillator did not work. So when all wires were correct but I did not hear the oscillator in the second week radio, and traced the filament, it was not heating.