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Daniel,
The symptoms you describe are of a top heavy situation. This would have been solved with having the altitude trunnions located on the center of gravity of the OTA. Instead, the pivot point is located below the COG of the scope.
An easy solution to this is to add a counterweight to the mirror box. The main advantages being easy to do and you don't alter the quality of the action when you move the scope around - most important!
Poor solutions would be bungie/shock cords that act as a quasi counterweight. Problems with these include additional mucking around to get them to work properly and they are perishable. Another is some sort of braking mechanism, but the are difficult to retro-engineer and the stuff up the quality of the action.
Remember another thing, regardless of what system you end up using, if you end up using a full length shroud around the OTA, this will add more weight to the top end, and as the shroud becomes sodden with dew it adds more weight again. Different eyepieces also have a big impact - going from a wee 6mm plossl and swap to a 1kg lump of glass is a BIG difference for the loading of the secondary cage!
If you go down the counterweight route, you can use 1kg weights and work out the best counterweight amount.
Alex.
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