While some say that having vintage audio is like a holy grail - in reality it means work 
. This time I'm maintaining the bearings of my table's tonearm. The arm and its moving parts are the most finicky part of the table. And they show their age. Based on the serial number, the table is from 1965 (one of the first 100 Thorens TD-124 MK II). The tone arm is original.
To start, some photos of the disassembly of the arm board.
Spoiler warning:
status after day 1:
it gets finicky now
For the bearing / suspension work, this should do:
I didn't add a banana for size, but these are small parts.
cleaning activities:
the components should not be oiled or greased. And I'm using isopropanol to remove contaminants. I let it evaporate on a tissue while I'm cleaning the (somewhat) larger parts.
eyelets before + after
I ordered a replacement rubber suspension for the arm weight. Like every other arm of this type you'll find out there, this one suffered from sagging.
This is how it looked like on my turntable:
Photo from the internet with an arm in worse condition:
image source: Fixing a Thorens BTD 12S Tonearm
Now I'll need to open the top part of the arm to get at the screws to release that back part. Done it before. Like all other activities, it's fiddly to put back together ....
