[Rerouter (Ryan)]

Newbie to astro, but familiar enough with mechanical to be dangerous,

I recently picked up a newtonion + eq3 motorised mount for $150, quickly found the binding and backlash issues, and started down a rabbit hole.

Pulled it down, re-greased it and tweaked the backlash, this improved the RA to the point I am happy with it, also found a solution to the RA setting circle grabbing (need a 0.5mm spacer, and then put some rubber bands around the groove to keep it held center and off the locking nut)

But the DEC is still left lacking, it has a ridiculous amount of friction on the fiber washers even without tension on the nut, and the ring gear teeth are not concentrically cut, with high and low spots, which all adds up to bad balancing, and bad tracking.

To the end of solving this I am hoping for some help from the DIY'ers who might be more familiar with what bearings / washer materials would be the best choice to make something of this cheap mount, also any tips about ways to clean up the ring gear teeth would be appreciated, I have marked the problem teeth, suspect I will need to selectively polish the high points until it levels out, unless someone might know the worm pitch.

Moving on the the main topic

The purple is the contact areas.

First thought is the top of the top of the dec ring gear could be widened to fit something like a 20x27x4mm deep grove ball bearing, inner race on the shaft, outer race on the ring gear, he would only come into play when balancing the axis, and that close to the firmest point of the shaft I don't see any problems with radial loading, other option would be a 20x35mm thrust bearing + washer, which consumes 2.5mm of thread from the nut, and adds the same gap between the head and the body, so not as keen with that.

The bottom of the ring gear is a challenge, as there are 3 moving faces in play, so I am imagining either the same as the top of the ring, with the inner race on the shaft / dec body, and the outer race set in the ring gear, the un-stocked unicorn KOYO TP2132D thrust bearing which chews up 2-3mm of thread, or bore out the bottom of the ring gear and fit a NX20Z

For the bottom nut, his friction seems very low, without any radial load issues, I don't think it needs any improving.

Alternatives I would like to try before all this would be some alternative to those red fibre washers, but I look forward to any input you can give on this matter,

I think I may have a small error and the RA shaft may actually be 1", If I was to ask for some suggestion there it would be some way to lock the ring without the set screws chewing up the thread, there is about 3mm of space between the top of the ring and the end of the thread of the polar scope