My copy of the endless river by Pink Floyd is smaller than the rest of my record collection and the arm on my BG6002 misses the record and slips off. All other albums are fine. Some of the new Beatles Re-masters wont fit onto the centre spindle on that particular deck either. Strange!

You can make the deck work with no platter on so you can see/hear what is happening.

First remove the cartridge for safe keeping.

With the platter and black plastic disc removed press play while holding the black centre of the turntable down as if it had an album on it.

Allow the turntable to spin under your finger until the moving carriage comes to the play position, now allow the black centre to rise.

The turntable will continue to "play" and you can see/hear what is happening to the "inards" of the deck.

My money is still on that ribbon cable touching the arms of the turntable as it revolves.

If you have or can get a cheap BG3300 you can transfer the sprung chassis, complete with all the working gears, into the BG8500. Simples!