Loose tonearm on VL12 turntable

I recently picked up a used VL12 turntable, cheap, and it has two issues. 1) the pitch LED doesn’t light when it’s locked. That one I can live with, but I would like to know if there’s a fix for it.

More importantly, 2) the tonearm is loose. It rattles a bit every time I touch it. I know it’s nearly impossible for anyone but an experienced tech pro to adjust the bearings and fix this issue, so I was wondering if a brand new replacement tonearm comes with that entire piece so I can just remove the old one and drop it in?

My other VL12 turntable is perfect; tonearm has zero rattle. Incidentally, that one has a white DENON DJ logo on the plinth. The one with the issues has a metallic, mirror-finish DENON DJ logo. Does anyone know the difference? I would think that one is an earlier run?

Thanks in advance!

The reset/zero LED doesn’t come on for just one of your VL12s when you press the button? I assume both your VL12s don’t light up that LED when you manually move into the center with the fader, as that’s a goofy design ‘feature’. I also assume you have three big deadzones on those faders.

You could tighten the bearings on the VL12 yourself either using a torque wrench if InMusic were good enough to tell you what settings to use, or you could just do it manually by feel and error very slightly on the loose side with a tiny bit of wobble, as it’s better to be too loose than too tight. If you’re too tight on tonearm bearings, they will either quickly go bad or might even cause the tonearm to float regardless of the downforce.

Your wow & flutter ok on them?