You wrote:  
<big snip>
>
>So, sounds like there is once chance for me: to find this
>"positioner motor lock" and move it into the unlock position.
>However, I have no idea how to do that? It sounds reasonable
>that this thing may be locked for transport, I sure hope
>so, because otherwise all my moving and installing this
>thing would have been in vain.

This, or something similar, bit me when I loaded my '81 (By hand, no jack 
for me... :()  There is a cable stuck in a little clip of the right hand 
front as you look in from above.  It needs to be pulled forward, and the 
little crimped-on stopper hooked down over a little bracket in such a way 
as to hold the lever of a microswitch down.  ISR this is the platter 
lock.  There is a white plastic lever on the top, or maybe towards the 
back, of the platter assy that locks the heads.  Mine had a big sticker 
that said what it was for, and still had broken sealing tape from when it 
was first put into service.  I'll take a look when I get home tonight if 
nobody else speaks up.

>
>any help with this is appreciated. Not that I depend on the
>RA81 for operation, but I've got it and I believe in having
>a VAX collection with 100% functional stuff.
>
>regards
>-Gunther
>
>
>PS: Anyone having dead RA81's for parts? Anyone has spare
>SDI bulkheads? I need one or two 2- or 4- port bulkheads
>for the RA disks outside the SA600 cabinet.
>
>
>-- 
>Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D.                    gschadow@regenstrief.org
>Medical Information Scientist      Regenstrief Institute for Health Care
>Adjunct Assistant Professor        Indiana University School of Medicine
>tel:1(317)630-7960                         http://aurora.regenstrief.org