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On the Credenza I just completed restoring, it has the eccentric switch with the long, forked lever that the trip rod rides inside of. I was playing an Orthophonic Victor record on it. The record apparently was longer than others I had tested on it, because it tripped the switch *before* it was over, i.e. before it got to the eccentric groove. I pulled the turntable and looked at the trip mech again and saw that it was being tripped via the long, U-shaped lever that also operates the eccentric trip. Once the needle gets far enough inward, the forked lever hits the free end of the U lever and trips it directly.

So I slightly bent the U lever open a bit more and fixed this too-early trip - so that it would trip eccentrically *before* it got tripped by the other end of the U lever. So - is this U lever also supposed to function as a trip for NON-eccentric records, or (?) That's what it appears to be just looking at it but I'm not sure. If so, did I adjust it correctly? Not sure if there is some standard way to set this U lever for non-eccentric records. Thanks!

I've had the same issue with one of my orthophonics. Here's a picture to help describe what I did, since I don't know the real terms for the parts: The circled area where these parts meet was slipping prematurely, causing the brake to trip. This might have been due to the pivot joint "B" being somewhat worn and having too much play. I carefully bent down the arm "A" a bit to rest snugly on the trip plate, and the problem has gone away.

The brake should only function on eccentric lead-out grooves, but if you have a really off-center hole the brake might trip anyway.
Hope this helps.
Bob

Although it isn't the problem here, I did find that a disc [usually not a
Victor or Columbia] that was pressed slightly off-center would also prematurely set off the Victrola automatic brake, no matter what you did.

To explain my Credenza's trip a little better, the "U"-shaped lever I mentioned is similar to the lever at the far right in your picture, the one with the pivoting ratchet on it. On mine that whole lever is shaped like a U, and the *other* end of it is being shoved directly by the forked lever. So after the ratchet end has started crossing the row of teeth, the other end of that lever eventually gets pushed by the side of the forked lever, forcing a trip that is independent of the eccentric groove.
To me the U lever looks to have no other reason to be there or to be shaped like this other than to cause default trips like this, where if the needle goes past a certain fixed point, it will trip. And seems like maybe it was made in this big U shape so that it would be easier to tweak it by slight bending, changing that fixed trip point. I'll try posting a non-blurry pic tonight.
Marky