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Rega P3 woes and flutter resolved (and how much is a drop, anyway?)

Posted by thewwwall on November 2, 1999 at 20:38:28

I was frustrated by my P3's startup time and wow & flutter problems. I posted a "complaint" a month or so back and got some helpful advice. I had changed belts twice and even checked my mains voltage over a period of time, etc... I even started "kick starting" it on startup, thinking that the motor was the culprit. My patience finally ended when a 200 gram MF pressing proved too much for the TT to even start! I was in the market for something more substantial.

This past weekend I was messing around with this and that in my shop and noticed the old broken spindle assembly that my daughter's "friend" damaged somehow (Steve L. replaced after a phone call and payment received, great guy and he's HQ'd in a great little town, I spent a bit of my formative years in K town.) He instructed me to simply coat the shaft with 80w gear oil and then add 3 or 4 drops of the same into the "bearing" well. *What I actually did was to take a lint free cloth and soak up the remaining oil and imagined other contaniments and then follow Steve's instructions, amount of oil, etc... and I forced the assembly into the well and thought that I had put too much oil when it overflowed.

I decided to inspect the spindle and noticed that the oil on the upper part of the spindle had discolored into a greenish/black. I wiped off this oil, recoated and put another "4" drops into the well. I then placed the spindle into the well and just let it stay in it's initial elevated position and walked away for a day or two and let gravity do its stuff. Today, I saw that it had settled down and I slipped the belt, platter & felt mat onto the assembly - Voila, the thing starts up and holds speed like nothing else. So, without bothering Steve again, does anyone know precisely how much oil is required, I mean empirically, how much is a "drop" and is 3 or 4 enough ? Also, is Mobil One synthetic lube OK in this situation? (hey, it was $6 for a quart compared to $3 for the regular stuff, so it has to be better delicate Hifi equipment, right? ;) Oh, and does gear oil evaporate after 3 or 4 months in a P3? Later and Thanks - Wally

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