nostalgia wrote:
I have the same machione, I bought it last autumn, but has not yet restored or repaired it. It has the same issue with the winding key, hopefully the solution to the problem will be the same as on your machine. I am starting to service the motor etc during the next two weeks. I have not yet serviced a Garrard motor, but along with 2 Columbia portables with Garrard motors, the time is now, since I really would like to have this Columbia 156a in operation before the winter sets in.
I took some photos for you, I hope they can be of help, so you can compare with your own machine. Since I myself not yet have serviced a machine with this tonearm, and also not yet have disassembled a plano reflex tonearm or Garrrard motor, I am not there yet to decide if all looks good or not. What I can see with the naked eye is that there is a very narrow space between the tonearm and the record on the turntable though. To me it looks like our tonearms have the same issue, but I have no idea if it is supposed to be that way or not, somehow it looks weird. I don't know if it affects the record plaing though, since I not yet have used the machine, since it also has a main spring issue not yet cleared out.
Thanks for those photos. These really are machines that are very pleaseing to look at

Looking at the plano reflex tone arm on my portable a well as some examples on ebay (see below) it looks like the tone arm should be parallel to the motor board and not slope downward like both of ours do. Also I have noticed that the metal bar on my tone arm for the auto stop slopes away from the button by the turntable that it needs to touch - so a sure sign of just how much it is bent. I am going to take my tone arm off wrap it for protection and put it in a vice and then to try and bend it back to its original position. I don't want to do it in situ and risk ripping the fixings out of the motor board.
I am interested in all forms of audio media including: gramophones, phonographs, wire recorders, the tefifon, reel to reel tapes, radiograms and radios.