[radiohenry]

Thanks all for the comments and suggestions.
As of yesterday the switch is no longer frozen but is very stiff. Too stiff yet so I will soak it a little longer and see what gives. Tonite if I think of it I will try the radio and see if the  switch to SW is working.
                                  Thanks all.
                                          Henry

[radiohenry]

Well today is the day  ! Soaking made the difference and I can now use the knob to switch from am to sw.
                            Thanks one and all.
                                       Henry

[Paul Philco322]

OK Henry, good for you, rest will be a snap..

Paul

[MrFixr55]

Rebuilt a Crosley 02CB for a friend, several years ago. had concentric shafts for band switch and another function (Tuning?) that I can't remember. I could not get the 2 parts loose for love or money, including heating with a torch (plumbing) and quenching with Liquid Wrench at the joints, to no avail. Went scary and whipped out the Dremel and cut a slit in the outer shaft. This did 2 things. Allowed the collar to expand a little and provided a "trench reservoir" for the Liquid Wrench. After another application of heat, I finally was able to free, remove, clean, lube and reassemble. Outer shaft was aluminum (if I remember correctly), inner shaft was brass. Dunno why they seized, no major corrosion, mouse leavings, etc.

While this would be radical surgery (I hear you all cringing!) if this was a Walton, Stratosphere, Scott, etc. (Pick your top of the line radio), it was a Crosley. and that "mod" was nothing compared to the need to completely replace EVERY wire in the chassis along with all the caps and many resistors. Fortunately, a big chassis w/ a lot of triodes instead of multifunction tubes in the AF section) so much room. BTW, dunno if this was a cost savings or what, instead of PP 6V6 or 6F6, this radio had 6AC5s in Class B., very rare in radios of this vintage that were not battery farm sets.

Put in a Radio / Aux sw and different size jacks in an external box (Radio had jumper type phono input terminal board. Owner can actually play his guitar through it not enough gain to overdrive, but that Magnavox speaker IS 80 years old.

[Chas]

Dunno why they seized, no major corrosion, mouse leavings, etc.

"Early" lubricants have additives that are supposed keep the lubricant stable. But when in combination with dissimilar metals the additives react with the dissimilar metals and ruin the viscosity and become a sludge, to grease, to an organic adhesive. Some of the lubricants were organic such as whale oil, being such they can also become rancid and react in a similar manner with mixed metals.

I used to praise "Lubriplate" but in time had to go back to my own equipment and find that the lube a stiff white paste that stopped delicate mechanisms. Later I went to sewing machine oil, then 3-in-1 to motors, then Nye all purpose, thought he Nye lasted the longest, it was very temperature sensitive and on my revolver the cylinder and safety latch worked like a "slug". Later, I had problems with common mineral motor oil so dramatically changing viscosity in an oil bath filter, the filter would load the air way and choke the engine. I changed to 0-20 synthetic motor oil, perfect.
I also have Teletype machines and clocks... I used Nye's all purpose on the oily bits of the TTY machine and Nye's office machine grease "Rheolub" on the motor bearings. All is good except in cold weather the TTY machine makes errors until the "All Purpose" oil warms up.  More recently I had had more than my share of motor failures around the home, this is because of the use of "Dust-Free" cat litter, NOT. So washing out bearings and lubing with the 0-20 synthetic brings them back, In one instance I did not wash out the bearings simple saturated the wicks with the 0-20, now operating nearly a year. Oh, it is a filtered floor fan, the motor is in the filtered air...
Though I have Nye's clock oil a Horologist/radio collector is using synthetic motor oil. I followed his advice and used the synthetic oil to lube my "new" Kennenger" Grandfather clock, 3-seconds/week, perfect.
Atwater-Kent suggested using 'Nujol" a pharmaceutical mineral oil and white petroleum grease for lube in his 20's battery radios. I can only imagine it is because there are no additives to those lubricants to bugger the brass parts.
Everyone uses lubes that seem to work for them, but add the test of time like I did, the view may change...
One of the toughest "stuck" problem I had was in a Grundig receiver with a integral ball-bearing planetary drive. Stuck solid, took days of solvent soaking and heat application.
Chas