The Problems: The mount did not work too well - there was considerable backlash, some grinding when the axes were moved, there was too much tension and friction to know when the mount was properly balanced, and the drive did not work worth squat. I decided to disassemble the mount to see what was inside, and try to improve anything I could. This improvement is meant to address all the problems except the drive, which will be dealt with later. When I completed this step, I did not re-install the drive on the mount.
The Cost: This particular work cost essentially no money - the only stuff needed is water and dishwashing liquid, and common household tools (actually, the Meade supplied tools are probably all that is needed). I spent three hours on a cloudy night working on this.
Figure 1: This is an exploded view of the RA axis, once it is removed from the rest of the equatorial head.
What To Do:
Both the RA and Dec shafts had some sort of hard, crystallized, reddish stuff on it, probably some poor excuse for lubrication. I removed that with wet cloths and dishwashing soap, and elbow grease. The next problem I noticed was that the RA shaft had some burrs on it. I used some emory cloth to sand them down, then some metal polish from the local car parts store to polish up the shaft. The photo above is the burr-free shaft after I did my work.
See that knob that is used to adjust friction on the dec axis (it sticks out on the opposite side that the RA axis attaches)? Unscrew that thing, and use sandpaper on the end where it touches the shaft. Make it pretty rough, use a coarse sandpaper, and sand off any 'divot' or curve the tip has acquired. This will make a big improvement in the smoothness of that axis.
Figure 2: One of several bushings in the mount that the shafts actually ride on. The Scotch tape, the reddish solidified lubricant, and what appears to be crankcase grease, are all visible on this part. It is not quite as obvious from this photo that the tape and grease were also on the inside surface of this bushing.
All the junk on these bushings was removed, the tape by peeling, and the grease and residue by washing in warm water and dishwashing liquid.
Figure 3: The clutch. All the surfaces that were supposed to slide with some friction, were smeared with sticky black grease.
The clutch assembly was a joke the first time I saw it. With sticky grease all over the clutch surfaces, the clutch caused enormous amounts of backlash, slippage, and other bad things. I cleaned all this junk out.
On my clutch, the small strip of nylon that buffers the gear to the rest of the clutch (just visible as a white circle inside the flat nylon disk in the right side of figure (3) was way too tight. This rendered the clutch friction adjustment screws useless - the clutch was always tight by necessity. I removed this strip, and very carefully used sandpaper to make it thinner, checking for proper fit after every pass of the sandpaper. You want a fit that is tight enough that the gear does not wobble around in the clutch, but loose enough that you can easily turn the gear with your hand. You could easily replace the nylon bushing with a thin piece of brass cut from a sheet..
Realistic Expectations at this Point: Once you have done these things, and re-assembled the mount, you should be able to properly balance the mount and can expect to be able to use your telescope for visual observing without great hassle. The drive may not work, and very windy nights might be a problem. Still, you should experience a great reduction in the stickiness of the bearing surfaces, and a reduction of backlash (there should be just a few seconds of arc of backlash when moving in Dec at this point).
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