Turntable Ball Bearings

[joew]

Hello, I can’t seem to figure out how to get the the turntable apart and off of the turntable shaft on my USC2, I have the parts catalog for it showing me the all of the parts, but I still can’t see how it comes apart. I have taken the two screws out holding it together but it seems to be stuck on, could this be because the ball bearings are froze up or am I missing something? Thanks, Joe

[Ron Rich]

Hi Joe,
The TT bearings tend to "freeze" to the TT, which causes zero problems, so long as the bearings themselves will turn ---and the rubber "grommets" are OK.
Why are you wanting to remove the TT ? If you really need to totally remove it, I use a block of hardwood and a small hammer ( I am forbidden, by law, to us a large hammer,as I tend to "bend" things). The stripper plate assembly must be removed to totally get the TT off the bearings.
Ron Rich

[joew]

Ron, I was looking at some of your old posts on this site, specifically one including the drive train, I have been having problems with everything turning smoothly. I read this post and realized I didn’t have the motor support plug. I don’t feel like the coupling will last much longer in the condition it’s in either. Also in this post you mentioned that the bearings needed to be free, so I thought I should try to have a look at the internals of the turntable so I knew if I needed to order any more parts other than the ones listed above. But if you say that I just need to make sure the bearings turn and the grommets are good then I don’t think I will go through all of the trouble to get it off ( if they are good). But how can you test to see if the bearings are good, because from what I understand the turntable is mounted to the shaft by the stripper plate and the bearings aren’t exactly visible. Joe

[Ron Rich]

Hi Joe,

I wrote this somewhere, but I can't spot it now--maybe it was in the "Seeburg Mechanism Guide" ( I will "sticky" this) I wrote--easy test--apply pressure to the TT (try this in both directions !), remove your hand-- does the TT "spring back" due to pressure on the grommets ? If so, TT ball bearings and grommets are just fine ! Ron Rich

EDIT: See the TT grommets ERROR note below, before, changing grommets  !

[joew]

Ron, thank you for the help, the grommets are good and the bearings are not froze up, looks like I won’t be taking it apart! Joe

[jeffe]

I've pulled many of these and like Mr Rich says, you need to remove the stripper plate, the clamp and finally the two small bolts and their respective keeps. Then you can use any sort of "T-Bar" fashioned "puller". Basically this is a piece of bar stock with a threaded hole in the center and two holes on the edges that can span the holes where the two turntable bolts pass through. The hole at the center of the turntable passes through to the shaft that the turntable bearings ride on. Mount the puller to the turntable using the bolt holes then thread a long bolt through the puller and basically this will pull against the turntable and pop it off the shaft. The bearings are mounted to the shaft. The outside of the bearings ride against the inside of the turntable. The grommets are hit and miss, sometimes they are okay, most times not. Good luck finding a suitable replacement for these. The bearings themselves should turn freely in any case. Sometimes they do, sometimes they are frozen. Often wow or other rumble type noise is directly related to the rubber motor coupling or the motor mounts including the bottom bumper. Less often noise is related to the throw out bearing adjustments on the turntable shaft and sometimes the clutch shaft bearing has been misadjusted. This results in a metallic warble noise where the motor mounts and coupler result in more of a rumble and wow. A styrene record will cause all this noise to be pronounced and sometimes can aid in diagnosis. Avoid using any hammers unless it's an emergency. They are especially useful when you need to walk away and call it quits permenatly. You get way more bang for your effort by replacing both the motor grommets, the coupler and the bottom bumper with new rubber. Having the tonearm set up correctly with good needles makes a major difference goes without saying. If your box has the "T" needles, prepare to spend some money trying to find good needles. Boxes that use the "T" needles are in a class by themselves and unlike the earlier mono carts, there was never a good alternative that's "plug-n-play".

[Ron Rich]

Jeff,
The correct grommets, and good "T" needles, are no problem to find, today ? If you need them, check with the suppliers listed in our FAQ's section.
--"Mr Rich" ?? That was my father ! Ron Rich

[jeffe]

Ron,

Yea yea... You young guys still deserve respect. Just curious, are there good aftermarket 370D needles out there now? If ya got a line on some as good as the original needles, please spill the beans. 25-30 years ago I bought a two blue and two gray oem needles and the prices were outrageous even then. Used oem needles seem to have issues with the rubber cantilever support. I've seen many used needles with melted rubber and this causes numerous noise issues. Pfanstiehl tried reproducing them a few years back and I heard these and they did not work that great even with the tube based amps. Local jukebox guru had a 222. He surmised it sounded great but could "use" some new TT bushings as he hadn't changed them. That and he had pulled the AGC tubes which did not help. When I did my library unit I had similar problems with the newer "L" shaped mono needles. It had a horrible low rumble. After buying a set of original needles I was still not happy and so I went on a quest to find new turntable bushings. After months of calling around and waiting for the bushings to be made, I found out that the bushings matter less than having good bearings but those were easy to find when the bushings were not. Good low friction bearings made a big difference in my set up. Turntable seems to work best "floating" on the bearings with little force against the actual rubber parts. If someone is going through the trouble of replacing the bushings, they should also think about replacing the bearings. I would not recommend this to anyone who doesn't have the right tools or patience but will attest the effort in my case was worthwhile. IMHO, people get way too hung up on thinking the 370D cart is their problem especially when they don't have the right needles and haven't at least tried setting it up correctly. Unless busted, these cartridges can and do sound great to my old fart ears. I suggest going through those motions prior to pulling a machine apart to change the bushings. But at least change the bushings and bearings before changing over to a new style tonearm.

[dalton]

I've heard that the newer production T needles are gray dimpled plastic and are supposed to sound as good as the originals. I can't confirm or deny this, only that the last T replacement needles sounded awful. If you check out needles4jukeboxes, he has a picture of the new versions.
Good needles on a 370 sound pretty darn good, and I don't think the speakers or amp are good enough to reveal whatever limits the 370 cartridge may have.

[Ron Rich]

Hi Dalton, Jeffe,
What is a 370 cartridge ? Where did you find that number ? The "D" in Pickering's numbering system stood for "Diamond" (an "S" indicated a sapphire tip). Ron Rich