Dale:

The bearing-balls were MIA in my Lab-80, also. That's what happens when you get curious and remove the TT before you realize that there is an open-construction bearing assembly waiting to surprise you.

You can maneuver the remaining phenolic race off of the spindle. Use care and a long enough tweezers or fine needle-nose pliers to grab the race. It should be able to be removed. If you can't get it off the spindle, leave it on and use thinner teflon washers.

The teflon sheet should yield washers that, stacked, are about as thick as the original thrust-bearing - I don't know how much leeway there is in the vertical position of the TT relative to the idler-wheel. You can use more than two washers -- stacked -- if you need to. Make sure that all of the edges are smooth after you cut them from the sheet -- you don't want rough edges snagging each other (I don't know if the TT simply rotates on the upper washer or the TT and the upper washer rotate on the lower washer -- don't care either because it works).

I took that race, placed it on a sheet of fairly thick teflon, traced it(pencil) onto the teflon and used an Exacto-knife to cut the inner hole first and then to cut the washer from the sheet. It took a little practice on a few samples (get a hand-sized or larger sheet of teflon) before I was able to get two acceptable teflon washers. They were a bit crude -- not perfectly round holes -- you have to make sure that any rough (flayed) edges are smoothed -- but I got them onto the spindle (stacked). The fix has worked perfectly ever since -- and the bearing rumble is gone, as a benefit.

Some shops will -- for a fee -- punch out the washers -- the inner hole must be large enough to pass the spindle -- with little "slop" -- the outer diameter should match that of the shoulder that the washer sits on.

Let me know how this works out for you ...

Regards,
>
> DanR.