Zenith C845 - FM works, no AM

[DavGoodlin]

Jeff, I have two Zenith Interludes like yours with "noisy" bandswitches. I cleaned them a dozen times with everything from pencil erasers to methyl alcohol to de-Oxit, without much noticeable improvement. It never seemed to affect the AM. I used a chopstick to poke the switch contacts, narrowing the issue to two connections.
It was so bad in the one that in order to get clear FM (intermittent pop and hiss due to a high-impedance connection), I had to disable the AM and hard-wire across the switch, on the rear-most switch wafer IIRC.
I cannot imagine this was an issue when these sets were new but the oxidation and likely eroding-wear of the switch contacts seems to affect them after 50 years of gentle use.