Where exactly do I add oil to VPI classic motor

Andy,
Do NOT remove or loosen anything! VPI's instructions leave a lot to be desired to be sure, but putting a drop of oil into the motor does NOT entail removing or unscrewing any hardware.

"Below" the brass piece means putting a drop of oil toward the bottom of the pulley shaft. The gravity will do the rest. The challenge is to get the job done cleanly as there is very little space between the brass piece and the pulley the piece surrounds. (Btw, the new Classics now come with a different pulley and have much more space between the brass piece and the pulley, doubtless in response to many customer complaints about the difficulty with lubricating the motor. I'm just not sure why it took Harry that long to address this.)

The best way to accomplish the task without getting any oil on the brass piece, or the pulley, is to use a syringe and a needle. The next best thing is a dropper you can buy at a local Rite Aid or Duane Reade. Unfortunately, the dropper's tip is too thick to actually insert it in the space so you'll have to put a drop of oil in the space at the bottom of the pulley, and let the gravity do the rest, and clean up any oil residue off the brass piece.

Lastly, lubricating the motor may not eliminate the noise. My motor also makes a very low "swooshing" sound even though is lubricated well. Because the motor pulley is exposed, dust and small particles make their way into the motor. As the oil is drying up, it may also cause the motor to make low level noise. It does not seem to be affecting the performance of the table, or the speed stability, but of course I still find it annoying. Mike told me the best medicine for this is to play a lot of records. I'm still not sure whether he was serious or facetious...

The "brass piece" is not inside the plinth, which you seem to think. It is the flat, round plate that is screwed into the plinth that surrounds the pulley. It is on top of the plinth, and is fixed by four hex socket screws. "Below the brass piece" simply means applying oil at the bottom of the pulley shaft, which spatially is below the brass plate/piece (think "inside" the brass piece). The problem is, of course, that the space between the brass piece and the pulley is so narrow it's virtually impossible to apply oil without getting some of it on the brass. You definitely do not want to get any oil on the plastic part of the pulley for obvious reasons. That's why I recommend using a needle.

Hopefully, your motor noise will disappear after the lube job. Mine didn't. It's possible that I applied too much oil, but Mike acknowledged that dirt, dust, and drying oil is likely to cause low level noise in the pulley. Let us know how it goes.

The motor and pulley are precision parts that are assembled by people who do this for a living. I'm not sure where you go this information, but I think it's a mistake and a big risk to be disassembling precision parts to put a drop of oil on them, which can be done without it. The manual speaks of no dismantling or removing any parts to lubricate the motor. As much as VPI manuals could be written better, I have no doubt they would not instruct the owner to simply "use 1 drop of 40-weight motor oil below the brass piece" if it required removing the pulley and looking for a mysterious brass piece hidden inside. I think it's foolish to do what you did, but I guess it's your equipment and you can do as you please. However, advising others to do it is a disservice to them.

Andy,

It's ok if you did it differently and ignored my advice. I simply offered what I thought and still think is the correct way to do this job. I don't take it personally as an attempt to discredit. However, the common sense, the manual, and the nature of the task all convince me that you should not be dismantling anything on your own for this purpose. You also assumed that the brass piece the manual speaks of is hidden below the pulley whereas the most plausible (and to me most sensical) answer is that it is the brass collar on top of the plinth around the pulley.

Btw, I don't even know how you removed the tiny screws from the pulley; they don't look like any screw I've seen before, and appear to require a special tool to remove them. That also tells me that this is not a user-serviceable part.

Anyway, the best way to settle this once and for all is to ask VPI directly. Hopefully, it will also prompt them to clarify this in the manual.

Mine do not look like screws that can be removed with an allen key. If so, it'd be the smallest allen key I've yet to see. They look more like hollow bolts with tiny screws inside that require a very, very small screwdriver of some sort to unscrew them. Regardless, the question is not whether you can do it, but whether you should do it. In my opinion it's completely unnecessary.

If "feeding" is necessary, you surely should be able to understand the reluctance...

What is remarkable are the lengths to which a neurotic audiophile will go to satisfy his neurosis. Of course applying a drop of oil cannot possibly be that simple; it must entail disassembling, realigning, reinserting, and reinstalling. Otherwise, it could never possibly work. Too simple.

I'll do what I need to do to get the best out of my system, but don't leave common sense behind (as long as I'm sober, admittedly). Too bad that brain stem that is apparently needed to reinstall a pulley cannot be used for applying common sense before you remove it...