Remove the resistor, turn the volume pot all the way down, measure the resistance between 38 and 39.
You either have a bad solder joint in the wiring between the input jack(s) and each tube (running through the volume pot), or the pot is defective.
There is no reason to assume that the pot is defective without measuring it to check (they generally take a long, long time to wear out).
If the resistance between 38 and 39 is not zero when the pot is all the way down, let us know.