Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

Once I screwed it in slightly, the shaft went forward and the clearance/axial float of the spindle/shaft was reduced a bit. It still exists but just smaller. Is this normal?

Mine does that.

The platter now rotates freely now (no scraping) and the motor locks on both speeds readily.

Then you're good as gold. Congratulations and enjoy....but as Lew says, think about replacing capacitors.

Thanks for the wonderful advice, guys!!!
I cannot thank you enough.
You just saved me a huge heartache of having to ship this unit back to UPS and get a full refund when I had much better plans for this baby...
I was a happy Oracle Delphi Mk II owner until two weeks ago. Had it installed and its suspension correctly tuned (a royal pain) with numerous arms and cartridges in the last 5 years:
Carts: DV 17D3, Benz Wood SM, SAE 1000 E and LT, Adcom Cross-Coil (another Coral based cartridge), Shinon Red Boron and even EMT JSD-5 Gold and the currently installed EMT HSD-6. My previous arm was Alphason Xenon MCS and now I am working with a Zeta which I absolutely love.
Long story short, always wanted to try a properly CLD plinth with a JVC DD motor so I got a JVC TT-71 motor and with the great woodworking skills of a dear friend built a 50 lbs, 9" tall, birch plywood plinth with solid ebony arm board for the TT-71/Zeta/EMT HSD-6. Basically I have two Zeta arms so I moved the one from the Oracle (with its added counter weights so the weight is closer to the gimballed bearing - great tweak btw) to the JVC plinth. I can call this now: "removable tonearm" as a twist on "removable head-shell":-). This JVC T-71 in its new plinth, walked all over my trusty Oracle. It was bold, muscular, dynamic, full sounding and much smoother, all at the same time. Macro dynamics were explosive compared to the Oracle. The only area where the Oracle did slightly better was separation of instruments and micro-dynamics like textures retrieval (like the asperities of a cello’s bow grinding on the strings, etc).
Adding some weights on top of the JVC plinth improved the micro-dynamics retrieval so we have concluded that with mass loading its go big or go home and with the idea of a friend, decided to build a crazy plinth: 36" tall, solid baltic birch plywood, cladded with a thinner sheets of plywood for added weight and for better aesthetics. It sits on my basement's concrete floor with the help of 3 massive, 5/8" (!) steel spikes that look like M61/Vulcan rotary cannon ammunition:-)
This baby was now weighing ~280 lbs and is basically a console, very similar in concept to the Denon DP-308F recording/mastering professional TT.
Even without the TT-101 in there yet, it is the best sounding TT I have ever heard, regardless of price and I heard many, 5 figure TT's like Well Tempered, various VPI’s, Avid Volvere, Scheu, Revolver, Oracle Mk V, fully loaded Linn LP12, Jean Nantais Lenco reference and even the Kuzma Stabi XL4 with air-liner air bearing tangential tonearm and Dynavecor XV-1 cart, which is the closest to it in sound, judging from my memory (only the Kuzma is a $40K TT before the arm and cartridge...)
It has been a dream come true for me and I can only imagine what the TT-101 will bring to the table (pun intended).

Thanks again for the invaluable pieces of advice!

Re the capacitors: removing the cage from the TT-101 reveals two stories of electronic components…many capacitors. Which ones do you replace? All of them? Do they need to be the same or any similar specs of capacitance and voltage will do?

Thanks again!

Doron

Doron, I understand exactly what you are talking about TTs ;-)
I´m experienced too in Oracles (have had two IIs, one III and one IV since the late 80´s, the IIs were the best I never liked the stiffer suspensions of the later models). Oracle´s suspension does not reduce sound stage nor smear the sound (as such) but it does kinda filter acoustic energy and thus filters details too. The Oracle fits all environments and still is a wonderful vintage TT when correctly finetuned, a very special design and one of the very finest suspensions if not the finest designed anyway. Btw, when you have been married with an Oracle its finetuning becomes a second nature but it is never easy, like in marriages in a long run I think.
Congrats on your new TT & happy listening.

Doron

First glad you no longer have the platter scraping issue.

Yes the spindle on my TT-101 has a small amount of upward
movement perhaps 1/16?

Lew, Concerning these non-offset arms, I believe the RS-A1 says tangent at 1/3 of the way from the inner groove. It's not clear if the inner groove is the lead-out groove or at the record label, but I think it means 1/3 of the way to the outermost groove or 92mm from the spindle. If it means 1/3 of the way from the final lead-out it would be 85mm from the spindle. The record label extends to 50mm from spindle (which makes 21mm from the spindle - in the label). The lead-out is at 60mm. The recorded part is to 155mm, and the record edge is 160mm. The description isn't explicit, maybe it lost something in translation.

Anyway, it makes sense that the one tangent point would be slightly toward the inside of the record. I've never seen a Viv arm. Fremer said something about the magnetic fluid being held in a chamber and the arm pivots effortlessly with no play or wobble. It won a couple product of the year awards. I thought maybe someone here was familiar. It costs over $4K.
Regards,