I’ve rebuilt and modified quite a few Lencos over the years. I was clearing out some junk in my office and came across a Lenco project I started some years ago and decided I needed to finish it. It started out with a conveniently sized sheet of 5mm aluminium that I milled out with the help of a good friend.
I had intended to turn up a complete new bearing and I think it was the length of time I took chewing it over that put the project on the back burner. Anyway over the weekend I sorted out a bearing for it. I decided it would be easier to simply beef up an existing bearing and I had just enough brass stock to that.
The mods included machining 5mm or so off the bottom of the original bearing housing as the original thrust plate and circlip are no longer required. The brass end cap makes the bearing oil tight for the first time in its life
With brass sleeve epoxied to the original bearing housing the finished bearing looks like this.
The bearing will mount directly into the plinth and not into the top plate.
I started the plinth yesterday and it’s being made from three sections cut from an old work bench that came out of a building at work. It’s dense plywood and quite heavy. Could be Permali or something similar. I’ll post some pics of that later.
With the PTP the idler mechanism is still attached to the bearing so I decided to separate the bearing from the rest of the drive mechanism.
This is the Lenco in my system atm showing how I separated the bearing.
I think the main thing is to improve the rigidity of the bearing mounting over the original thin pressed steel. I don’t think your bearing is going anywhere.
Consensus seems to agree that idlers like mass over decoupling. I like the simplicity of the Lenco, my PTP has even fewer bits to go rong; I can focus my OCD on the arm and cartridge.
The idler is now fixed at 33 rpm and the redundant mechanism has been altered to disconnect the idler. You can just make out the monofilament that I’ve used to connect the idler rod to the control arm.
I’ve made a template so I can mark out where the cut outs will be in the plinth.
I’m not 100% sure about this yet. I might cut some 8mm steel plate yet and bond that the top plate so I only need to cut out the plinth for the motor and the bearing. I do have some acrylic sheet but I think steel will damp the top plate better.