TV Tuners of days gone by...

[KD4CCF]

35+ years ago, rather than muck around with aligning and repairing rotary type TV tuners, both tube and transistor, I'd send them off to a place called PTS.

PTS always did a super job at a price that made sense to outsource the tuners.
When they came back, they were spotless, lubricated and aligned.

Question is, how and what did they use to clean them?

The solvents had to be plastic friendly yet aggressive enough to get rid of corrosion, dust and other contaminates.
I would think that they also had an ultrasonic cleaning stage.

Anybody know someone who worked there?

[PKTKS]

Well nobody risk some hints....

About 30y ago  FREON based solutions were very common

They are better, more aggressive and dry faster promoting
a much better cleaner action on rotary switches.

But those hairy heads promoted FREON based sprays
as something odd (the same hairy heads on LEAD FREE...)
and the sprays without FREON are not as fast not as good as the
old ones...   (much like LEAD FREE will never replace LEADED)

nevertheless the very same brands and products still exist
advertised as FREON free - of course they not even close the
same results...

Paul

[syau]

Just like trichloroethane, excellent solvent to clean PCB after soldering.