I'm just starting to get interested in DIY and maintaining audio myself, so please accept my apologies in advance if my questions seem naive. However, I recently purchased an old NAD 7225PE receiver, am hell bent on making it work, and need help. I'll give a brief outline of the
problem first, and then I'll pose specific questions at the end. I welcome your input.

In first testing the receiver, I discovered only one channel worked. The sound sometimes went off completely, but then seemed to come on and improve as I adjusted the volume up. It also intermittently distorted.

If had not been used for several years, and a huge amount of dust etc. had accumulated inside the receiver housing. I brushed out the debris, used forced air to clean it out more, and used a combination of alchohol and DEOxit cleaner and then power enhancer on as many contacts and pots as I could find.

The metal strip holding the pots for treble, base, and balance, seemed to have been bent backward, and I noticed the tab-like housing for the balance had been broken.

I ran the receiver for several hours bursts after the cleaning, and viola, no more distortion with changing the volume. After several more hours, the second channel came on! Distorted, but audible nonetheless. I found by pushing the balance control in slightly, I could get more sound out of the second channel.

However, after running the receiver for the better part of 3 days, the other channel disappeard once again, with the other channel sounding fine.

So:
-overall diagnosis of problem--balance pot?
-If replacing the balance pot, where to get parts and any other recommendations for how-to
instructions, ie, websites. What would I need to do that work?
-are there other components to replace/repair?
-I've heard some different ideas about how pots should cleaned--does the housing/large part(name?) of the pot also get injected with cleaner/enhancer?

Thanks