contacts no longer working on telephone

[lost in sicily]

I recently recieved two cordless telephones, digital, that communicate with a corded base. On one, the living room handset, the buttons for on and off where a bit "sticky" or didn't want to work all the time. The second phone, the dining room handset, worked beautifully. Now the living room set's on button, and off button, and number 1-6 are no longer working. I took it apart to see what is wrong and try to fix it, and i found on the buttons that were not working what looked to be a kind of oilly substance. When I used a cotton swab to clean this gunk off it had an orangish brown color though i couldn't detech any order from it. once i cleaned all this stuff off and reassembled the phone again, making sure to wipe the metal contacts on the chip off as well, the phone worked again very well. After only about a week it continued to have problems and now the buttons will not work. Upon disassembly again i found the same sort of residue on the buttons, but not in as great of quantity. I tried cleaning them off again but it did not work this time. The on, off, and #1-6 are still not working. I used another number on the key pad to press the appropiate metal contacts to see if the board was bad or the touchpads and it worked. Thus leaving me with the conclusion that the rubber contacts on the touchpad have gone bad.
I am confused as to how this could happen. how can the rubber spots on the touchpad go bad? They appear to be in perfect condition and appear to be no different from the numbers that do work.
Am I right in my conclusion or horribly wrong? Is there anything I can do to fix this "dead zone" in the touch pad? What could cause the oily lik substance to appear that caused the phone to go bad in the first place? How can this stopped or treated?
Thank you anyone who may be able to help.

[minnie]

Clean the pad and board with isopropal/rubbing alcohol.

[Justmanuals]

You could also use a pencil eraser to clean the contacts. Make sure you wipe away the eraser flakes.

HtH
[email protected]
_________________
Want To Fix Something?
http://www.manuals4you.com

Need a manual now? Instant Download
http://www.justmanuals.com

[minnie]

Another old trick is if the magnets on the pads are too warn, glue pencil graphite to them. The 'goo' is usually sweat.

[[email protected]]

I have fixed many rubber touchpads- the carbon coating goes hi-res-clean the surface with metho or isoprop, put a small dab of silicone in centre, & press a suitable size alum foil implant onto the hi-res contact- let cure for 24 hrs & wow- better than new!.