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Peter,
I performed a hypertune and found the following :
1. You do need a little mechanical/hands on to be confident in stripping it down.
2. The replacement bearings improved my RA "jerkyness" to some extend. After polishing, my LXD55 was a smoother and better for it but not a huge gain though.
3. I found a significant improvement in reducing jerkyness by replacing my RA encoder wheel which I found to have a slight manufacturing defect for original. This also contributed to me being unable to get "smooth as a baby's bum" performance. Beware, those encoder wheels are so easily damaged and bent. Treat with extreme care.
4. I also replaced my Dec motor (Star Optics on the Gold Coast for around $90 from memory) and my old motor was just not happy.
In all, the performance of the mount allowed me to photograph happily at 200mm focal length (guided) with good performance. But I still was not happy with the tripod and even after the upgrade, I still struggled to get a consistent performance at 812mm worthy for astro photography. The LXD55/75 is just not in the same basket as say an EQ6 for photography imo.
If you're going to do astro photography, you really need to assess the current condition of your mount. Is it still jerky? Maybe it is simply the encoder wheels. The LXD55/75 is not really suited for photography beyond say 200-300mm FL.
For visual, I would not perform the upgrade. Just not enough to be gained by spending that money - save it for a future upgrade or an accessory.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Darrin...
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