I would first check to make sure that at rest, cued up, the stylus is centered. If it is, then the shutter is misadjusted. You may see evidence of that when the arm is cued down, in that the tonearm moves a bit laterally instead of dropping straight down.  When the belt is off, and the arm is cued down on a record, it should drop straight and then not move for 2-3 revolutions of the record.

From what I can tell, it seems that the stylus has a slight angle to the right in the photo below while queued up. I suppose that indicates damage?

I’m afraid it does. You are not likely to be able to get it rebuilt, but Soundsmith sells an SMMC4 for $230 as a replacement. They are reputable.

Oh bother, well, tale as old as time, but with the Canadian exchange rate as it is, import duties etc., it seems like a bit of an unrealistic investment into a deck of this quality. I’ll see if I can improve the situation any by adjusting the tone arm parallelism, maybe adjusting the optical sensor leading, and the cartridge parallelism, as a sort of “make it work” project. Otherwise I’ll see if anyone else would like to have it. It really does seem as though even when the stylus is straight before it drops, once it drops, the cartridge pulls to the inside relative to the groove and causes the stylus to bias to the outside.  

Good news and bad. good news: Adjusting the pickup parallelism really does seem to correct this problem. bad news: screw D is stripped (standard screws should be outlawed) and that’s the screw to make the adjustment properly. For now. I’ve shimmed something under the plastic pin that goes up against set screw D, to rotate the pickup parallelism a small amount. If I can’t eventually get that screw moving, I will tack glue a tiny piece of plastic thereto effect a reversible but longer term repair.

I sincerely hope none of this is offensive to anyone. I’m ultimately trying to keep the deck in service, nobody around here is going to be paying for a replacement cartridge any time soon, and I’m hoping that nothing I do is going to permanently alter the 5005 in a negative way.  

You should realize with a cartridge likely over 30yrs old and and obvious suspension issue and unknown diamond wear, that you are likely doing damage to your records which may in total be more valuable.

You’re right, I got ahead of myself. I won’t use the 5005; perhaps someone will want it for parts or something. cheers and thanks for the input.