I was in the same predicament last year, I was worried about pulling apart my 9.25 sct, but i bit the bullet and cleaned it. Its not overly difficult to do just be patient and methodical.
I used the recipe for the cleaning solution on this site.
http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/reports-cleaning.htm
The proceedure took me 3 hours, because I was being a little too cautious, but the end results were worth it.
Good luck!