Goldring Lenco GL75 DIY V-Blocks

Ah the good old GL75, my trusty companion. Quite long in the tooth now but I love it, and personally I find its sound reproduction quite good for a table from 1972! Im not a huge record head but I have a big collection of vinyl and the Lenco is usually the deck I reach for. However, this particular deck has the common v-block issue.

Im not going into too much detail about dismantling your lenco but hopefully the pictures will give you an idea. Below you can see the v-blocks, a mustard coloured rubber material which has perished with age, especially the one on the right.

The best option is to buy a new pair online for around £20 + p&p. However, I have a little trick which is easy to try, non destructive and its free! All you need is: some super glue, scissors and an old drinks can.

I propose we keep the original v-blocks but add an aluminium skin over the top.

You will need to cut a strip of metal from a drinks can. Make it the width of the "inside" of the v-block. The longer you make the strips, the easier it is to see if they are sitting square latter on.



You then bend it into a right angle, make sure your fold is straight and true, I used a straight edge to bend against. You can now pop it in the v-block to check it sits well and is the correct size. Hopefully you have something like the picture above. If so make another one to match.

You should now have two strips in place, one for each block. Now this is the tricky bit! You need to apply a tiny dab of glue to the lower part of the strips, pop them in place and then get your arm seated as quickly as possible. Make sure your arm is seated correctly as the glue will dry fast! Hopefully you now have something like above.

Once the strips have bonded to the blocks you can remove the arm and the v-blocks. You now simply trim the excess metal from the blocks. Hopefully it looks like the above.

Now put it back together and fold the little strips over the tone arm. This will keep the arm sitting in the crisp metal groove we have made. Put the rest back together and your ready to go!



Before the arm would loose tracking about half way in a disc and do all sorts of jumping ect but now with my super high precision v-blocks in place she plays solid and true. The wobble in the arm is all gone, before you could rotate the arm and it used to lean to one side.

All in all I'm very pleased with my creation but I certainly wouldn't recommend it instead of new blocks. This should only be tried if you don't have the money or simply cant wait for new blocks to arrive. You need good eyes and a steady hand and the success of the project depends on how accurately you fit your strips in place.

Until the next time guys...