(To skip to the question and ignore the ramblings, proceed to the last paragraph)
This weekend, I've been working to resurrect a Garrard changer that I just couldn't make myself part out. Got it for a couple of bucks. Brought it home, plugged it in, threw a disposable LP on it, and it worked perfectly in manual mode. Even the Pickering cartridge and stylus were great. The headshell/cartridge and automatic spindle are worth more than the whole changer in the current condition. Put on a decent LP, and it sounded great.
Ugh... I just wanted part it out & make a little money on it, but this old thing still had a good heartbeat. Looks a bit rough underneath. A lot of the levers that appear to have been zinc coated have white pasty/powdery oxidation. Some of those parts are buried pretty deep in the mechanisms. I took the top lever off and it cleaned up easily. With that one out of the way, I could get the speed control lever off and it cleaned easily, too. And the rest of the speed control mechanism, as long as I'm there.
Ugh... WHAT AM I DOING??? This was not what I wanted to get into!
So, I conned my better judgement by telling it this would be good practice. I've been dreading getting into the Collaro in my Stereo Theatre, see. Yeah. That's right, I NEED to do it for practice. AND when I'm done maybe my 16 year old son would like to have it in his room because vinyl is cool again and he could impress friends with a real record player instead of one of those plastic Crosleys from the mall. He likes disco, and that should be played on a turntable instead of cell phone anyway. Wow! Now if I ignore the fact that I already have at least half a dozen good working turntables, there are all kind of reasons to keep going!
Fast forward to Sunday afternoon and I have steadily R&R'd most of the mechanisms, one little piece at a time, except the tonearm and the motor itself. And yes, I'll have to remove much of what I've already done to get the tonearm off. But this way I only have to learn/remember a little more each time.
At this point, I remembered when initially testing it there was what felt like a little AC tingle when I touched the metal plinth very lightly. I planned to replace the old AC cord with a current 3-pronged unit for safety, but I'm not sure where AC may be leaking onto the plinth. There's only one cap, it's between the motor switch contacts for click suppression. The motor case has a ground wire to the plinth, but the motor case has a light layer of corrosion, perhaps there's some appreciable resistance between the case and the ground wire.
Any ideas? AC on the chassis is not a happy place.
-Tim