About 40+ years old. Worked great except static when changing stations. For a long time could eliminate most by rapidly changing stations but it finally got so bad I decided to clean tuner. The tuner is small box encased in plastic. Drilled a couple holes with pin vise so I could give it a good spray. Well, I got rid of static but also lost half of the FM band. Any guesses about what I did? Thanks for your help.

 

Post many photos, clear and well focused, so we see what you have.
Model of radio?

 

What did you spray it with?

 

CRC QD contact cleaner. In the old days I could find tuner cleaner and I was hoping this would be ok. There may be a pool of liquid in the tuner since it is enclosed except for the two holes I made. It looks like the cleaner lifted some of the wax around the chokes. You can see one hole I made. I made another hole on the opposite side.

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CRC QD contact cleaner. In the old days I could find tuner cleaner and I was hoping this would be ok. There may be a pool of liquid in the tuner since it is enclosed except for the two holes I made.

That will cause your problem. Try to flush the cleaner out with isopropyl alcohol. You may have to enlarge one of the holes you drilled.

 

Service manual here..
https://elektrotanya.com/sony_cfm-165tw.pdf/download.html#dl

Clean the tuning capacitor as best as you can with isopropanol, the wax won't make any difference as long as you don't damage the tuner.

 

I gave tuner a couple good flushes from each side. I did not rotate while flushing. Do you think I need to?

 

You squirted fluid into the variable tuning capacitor?
That is a no-no.

Now you have to clean it out completely. Flush it out with isopropyl alcohol.
Yes, rotate the tuning dial. Do not adjust the trimmers.
Then put the whole radio in an air tight container or zip-lock bag with about a cup of uncooked rice. Allow it to sit for a week.

 

Tuning caps don't cause static between stations. The AGC or mute circuit likely drifted due to aging parts. Your 'cleaning' has detuned (less noise) the input RF front-end stage and shifted the tuning range. Once all the fluid has been removed and dried the original capacitance values should return. @MrChips has good advice to restore the radio.

 

Ok, still do not have 93MHz and below. No worries since I only listen to one station which is in the working part of the band. Thanks for your help.

oh, just saw recent posts. I flushed her good with IPA. I did not mess with the trimmers.

Seems like I remember watching guys clean variable air caps with copious amounts of direct spray.