You can see it on that picture. Some schmuck must've clearly tried to 'fix it' by tightening the screw as far as it would go, when it wasn't even properly seated in the centre of the bearing. As a result, the point left a dent in the casing, which now prevents the balls from moving freely. I don't think this will be easily repairable - I have tried to 'pop' the affected part back but it's hard to get anything in there. The very tip of a pin barely squeezes in. And the metal is actually pretty hard, which makes me wonder just how much force was used. Some people really do deserve to have their tools shoved up their.. For now I've left it with a tiny bit of play and it works - I can blow on the arm and it'll float across the platter, although if I leave it to float back, it slows down very noticeably around the 12 in. mark. If I do this same thing with bias set to 1.2 it'll float back in one smooth stroke - so I guess it could be worse. Still, it's a bummer. I'm thinking of what to do... I even have some bearing cups around from another turntable, but removing the pressure-fit piece (the one with the dent) looks very much impossible. Bright side (sorta) to this is that I play mostly 45s, and the arm seems to work properly around that area. But I still need to replace the microswitch under the 45 RPM button, as it is gone. Does anyone know what part I should get - not a 'Technics' branded part as it'll be unnecessarily expensive, those can be had from any major electronics store. I just need to know what to look for. While I'm at it I'll replace the pop-up bulb (burnt out) with an LED so it won't burn out again.
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