so where are we now a few weeks later....
i have overhauled the complete machine, regreased the platter bearing, the motor and restored the original plinth, reglued the white coating and resoldered al the soldered connections.
The motor bearing is always leaky because the plastic thing at the bottum doesnt fit well. I replaced that with a plastic thing they use for steel legs of tables and stools that fits perfectly and no leaks anymore at all (costs €0,18
) and its better than new.
This TT belonged to my friends parents and my approach is : restore it at first the way it was designed. If he wants to do major improvements in future, like another plinth or another cartridge etc. he can do that later. So no big problems there. I did replace the cords by some decent ones with guilded plugs.
Than there was the issue with the tone arm bearing (see pictures above) I waited with this to the last moment because there was another problem. HUGE hum on the right channel, which I wanted to solve before making other costs regarding the tone arm. I resoldered the connections in the headshell, replaced the cartridge with my own Grado cartridge but all of that of no avail.
I took the arm apart, there is a tiny little nail on the underside of the tonearm which i could pull out with small pliers. Then i could take the plug apart easily (no glue or whatsoever) There the problem appeared the connections of the right channel in the arm were faulty and after resoldering the connector and rebuilding everything we have great stereo sound.
as for the idler wheels rubber, i replaced it with a replacement rubber O ring. If my friend wants to replace the wheel by a metal one in future it's up to him. The wheel now is as silent as a plastic one can get and it works like new.
I wound the idler wheels axle with teflon tape to reduce rumble.
Then finally i bought new bearings for the arm, i found some fitting ones designed for medical purposes online. tonearm works like a new one now.
Project finished!
