94 Year Old Philco Model 20 - 1930 - Power Switch Repair - Vacuum Tube TRF Radio - Part 4 [4K] 

Hello George. I would try CRC QD Contact Cleaner from the Auto Parts store first and maybe try a little scrubbing action with a pipe cleaner if it fits. I believe the culprit is dried, dirty grease on the contacts. Other contact cleaners, if you have them, such as MG Chemicals Contact Cleaner or NuTrol are good. Let it dry well as the contacts will arc at line voltage. The phenolic wafers absorbs that stuff and you want it to dry out as I believe it will break down phenolic over time if left in there. (WD40 is flammable and will ignite if there is arcing - saw it happen on a relay contactor.) If that doesn't work well enough, now that I have opened up that switch and put it back, I would do it again to do a thorough job. When opened up, the the QD on a swab does the trick with a little scraping to help. Now that I know what to do, it wouldn't take that long and the job will last a long time. If you lubricate the yoke to the middle of the dumbbell, I would suggest an extremely tiny amount (tiny: like the head of a pin) of dielectric grease (auto store) so it won't lead to shorting out. Let me know what you end up doing and how it works - we all want to know. Good luck on the 20! Thanks for the note and if this video helped give it a sub and thumb if you haven't already, it helps others to see it. Thanks again.

@@PracticallyFixed I have some deoxit D5 and Fader. Do you think one of those would work? After watching you put it together I’m worried about taking it apart haha.

Yes, I'm just a little skittish of residue; the contacts didn't corrode, they got packed with old gunk that got dirty and dried out. I understand why you would avoid the disassembly, especially the way I was whining (ha), but I was a little traumatized from the experience as I didn't know what to do - fun like a roller-coaster - gasp. But I knew that Philco had to be able to assemble them quickly during production, so I just needed to figure out "the trick". I have another Philco of this era I will restore eventually and it has this same switch. I will take it all the way apart as I did here just see how fast I can do it now I know the trick. Just don't let the spring launch parts into oblivion! Good luck and let me know how it turns out. (c'mon - go for it!! You want to...)

@@PracticallyFixed I sprayed the tiniest bit of deoxit in and used a very small swab. Could reach the closest tab easily and took off a ton of gunk. Bent the swab and got to the far tab and also pulled off a ton of gunk. Used a heat gun to lightly dry the phenolic. Testing shows perfect ops for now where it was very intermittent and mostly not working prior. I have a lot of other work to do before I need the switch so I’ll let it dry thoroughly. If it gives me any fits then I’m going for it. Thought this was worth trying anyway. (Chicken)

@@georgescott1353 awesome. Glad it worked!

Thanks for the note. I did need to take deep breaths from time to time.

Thanks Terry. I didn't see where anyone showed how to fix these so I thought I would show the detail plus the "figuring it out" part. I could probably do it pretty fast now, and have another project in the wings which has this switch so I may get to test that someday. Thanks again.

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed a look at 100 year tech; I did. Thanks for the comment!

Thanks again! More on this radio to come.

Thanks Doug. Yes I thought it was pretty interesting, and I did not see anywhere online where anyone discussed its design or how to fix it - so I thought this might come in handy for someone someday. Thanks again.

Thanks. Yes keeping that original switch will preserve the feel of using the radio and it is cool old technology I had not seen before. A string might work too but the needle also gave me a "handle" for positioning the parts. Thanks again.

Yes, that was my guess as well. The switch arcing probably didn't help. Thanks.

Ha, thanks Jim. Having the restoration master watching me is making me a little nervous! I don't know where the patience came from - never had that before...