Deck update:
She's here!
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And it looks like I'm a winner - I believe this is the slightly later model GL-85 manufactured under license by Goldring, which has the added diode mod to prevent motor damage, fully working (which my previous deck never was) including ON/OFF, speed control, speed adjust, auto stop, fitted with a SHURE M75EJ cart. The arm lower doesn't appear working, so can look into that at some point, but this came with the OG lid (rare as rocking horse shit!) in amazing condition, AND all of the anti-skate mech furniture which you never see on these old Lenco decks. I just have to decide now whether I pay through the teeth to have the actual weight, or just use some fishing shot for pennies ;) Somebody(s) have really looked after this beauty, and the recent full service hasn't hurt either. For less than £80? I honestly can't believe my luck.
A cool surprise is that I am actually rather fond of the wood-colour plinth, and think I'm just going to leave this deck intact, and try to replace the motor/generally service and upgrade my other GL-85 as a spare. This one doesn't have the Lenco badge on the front, strangely - will have to look into what that 'means' in terms of it's manufacture date etc.
Another surprise is how great this deck sounds - and I'm convinced it's output is louder than my previous GL-85. Either my old one had a failing pre-amp, or this model has an improved one, either way it sounds freakin amazing and once the ground loop is sorted properly it'll be a stunner: the current earth lead is very short, so it's temp earthed through the base of my iMac! And as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton :D
But boy am I happy to be spinning again! I have a pile of wax which I'm loading up and will report back...
Happy days though, that was a rough few weeks!