[AMRadio] A WD-40 Story

[JAMES HANLON]

Some 30 years or more ago Homestead Air Force Base in Florida was hit by a major hurricane, and the telephone exchange there, a Crossbar type, was flooded.  Bell System folk from all over arrived to help recover the exchange, and they sprayed the Crossbar Switches down with WD-40, reasoning that since it was a Water Displacement product it would drive the water out of the magnet coils, and the mechanical switching levers and contacts of the Crossbar Switches.  It did and the exchange recovered and came back to life - for a few months.  Then as the WD-40 dried and congealed, the switching mechanism and contacts gummed up with the residual heavy hydrocarbons of the WD-40 and the exchange was destroyed.
 
And that's why I do not use WD-40 on electrical contacts.
 
Jim Hanlon, W8KGI, Bell Labs Electromechanical Switching Device Laboratory, 1970 through 1989.