Accent vibrato bottom washer?

[pythonman]

I recently picked up a 2022 325V64 Miami and digging it! I do have a concern tho since this is my first Rickenbacker with the Accent vibrato. It feels not smooth when either swinging the arm up to play with it nor swinging it down and away when I don’t want it in playing position. It has a gritty feel like the bottom of the arm ring is grinding against the trem plate top. The plastic washer under the hold down screw is in place but I’m wondering if there’s supposed to be something similar for the other end of the arm post?

Thanks.

[doctorwho]

There doesn't appear to be a lower washer according to the Accent vibrato parts diagram:

Excerpted from the original RIC file, reproduced for educational purposes only.

[pythonman]

There doesn't appear to be a lower washer according to the Accent vibrato parts diagram:

Vibtratos_Accent_crpd.jpg

Ok thank you sir.

[ChuckEds]

My only experience with the Accent was putting one a 350V63 I used to have, and I never had any problems with it and it always worked quite well. Have you taken the arm off to see that the ring looks okay? I do remember that underneath the screw there were two washers to tension the arm, are they in place? Can you post some pix of the parts as well?

[pythonman]

Under the ring, and on top of the plate beneath the arm post is a weld bead.

I fixed a bunch of minor things on my 325 today. A bit of Nut Sauce under the tremolo arm ring smoothed out the side to side action so that’s fixed. Tiny dabs of Wilson Combat Universal grease/oil fixed the squeaking bridge saddle rollers. And finally a set of RickySounds 12-54 compressed strings were a huge improvement over the standard Rickenbacker 12-54 roundwounds. Got rid of all the buzzy noise from the tremolo plate and bridge and now there’s zero fret buzz all up and down the neck. Can’t recommend those strings more highly for this guitar!