Nottingham spacedeck motor - driving me crazy

One other thing to check: due to its weight, the motor sometimes will slip down in its pod over time. When that happens, the grooves on the pulley no longer line up with the grooves on the platter.

Good point, John. I'd forgotten about that NA motor quirk. Here's what the dealer manual says about the motor height: "The motor height is adjustable and it is important to line up the grooves on the pulley with the grooves on the platter. Make sure the table is leveled first. If you need to raise or lower the motor, do so by pushing on the motor itself. It is snug in its housing, but it will move."

You shouldn't need to loosen the screws holding the motor to the housing to do this.

That was an occasion when my Spacedeck motor spins at varying speeds and at times it does not stop at all. That was real insanity then.

I replaced the motor and from then on, I never leave the motor on. If you touch the motor, you will notice that it does gets warm in its standby state.

I just got a Nottingham Ace Space which is basically the Space Deck with a pre-set tonearm and cartridge. How far away should the motor be from the back right leg of the table? Should it touch? Does moving it further away change the speed? Sometime it sound just a little bit slow. Anyone else notice this?

No it shouldn't touch, I think Nottingham recommends 6 cm from the edge of the pulley to that of the platter? In any case, in mine, it never really made a difference where it was placed. The best just have to be stretched enough, and not too much.
For the record, the AceSpace is not a Spacedeck preset with tonearm and cartridge, it's a Spacedeck with improved bearing if I'm not mistaken. The fact that you got it preset has nothing to do with it.