Help needed setting up Audiocraft tonearm

[spindlnc]

I recently bought at auction a vintage Sota Sapphire with an Audiocraft AC 300 tonearm. All parts appear present, and tonearm is functioning. Issue I have is that the upper half of the post leans inward, toward the turntable platter, throwing azimuth off kilter. It's as though there is added weight toward that side, but there does not appear to be any parts missing that would result in such an imbalance. I have removed both the tonearm tube and the counterweight, and issue remained the same. Removing the top cover revealed three tiny screws. I thought to remove them and see whether there was an issue with the pin (or whatever the upper segment of post rests on), but the screws were too tight for me to budge and I did not want to force them.

One solution might be to add a weight to the outward side of the upper post, but I don't see how it could be secured without altering the arm.

Thoughts?

 

[stratokaster]

This is an AC300 mk2 (the armtube is removable). The manual is available from Vinyl Engine. I believe the knob on the right hand side of the pivot is used to adjust lateral balance. You need to rebalance the tonearm and disable viscous damping before adjusting lateral balance.

From the factory, the tonearm included a small extra weight that screws into the lateral balance adjuster knob.

 

[spindlnc]

Thanks for your help.

I don't have the small extra weight.

I'm not sure how to disable viscous damping, though I believe I did so by removing the damping adjustment knob.

I was then able to level the lateral balance. However, when I replaced the damping adjustment knob, the lateral balance went askew again.

 

[stratokaster]

Get the manual from here: https://www.vinylengine.com/library/audiocraft-ultracraft/ac-300.shtml

It's 13 pages long and very detailed.

 

[Nat]

This isn't based on actual knowledge, but doesn't the horizontal black cylinder rotate and move to shift lateral balance? If it is all the way over, maybe adding an finger lift would help - certainly it would make using the arm easier.