I have just returned from servicing a one and a half year old Kimball Viennese Edition 580P grand. When I noticed that the sutain pedal had alot of lost motion and didn't lift the dampers sufficiently, I turned the nut on the pedal rod up -- and up -- and up, until I finally had removed the lost motion, but the dampers still did not have sufficient clearance above the strings. I had turned the nut up about a 3/4" or more. Finally I got under the piano again, to see if the pitman dowel was somehow sliding around instead of moving vertically. I was suprised to see that the pitman dowel was very short ( barely extending below the keybed), and attached to a spring which substituted for what should have been the bottom half of the dowel. Have the rest of you had the misfortune to find this in other Kimballs? I plan to retrofit a normal pitman dowel in the future. Other than this, and that jack positions and repitition lever heights desperately need regulating, it's not a bad piano, given that the company was shutting down production at the time it was made. Patrick Draine RPT Billerica, MA
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