[Winky Dink]

I understand what you're saying. The bulb is actually an old one that came with the set. I have tried bending the bracket, too.
The vane snaps back to dead center when the set's turned off, but with power on, it doesn't return to the center position. I'd give you a photo, but the radio just had a catastrophic failure--sudden complete loss of audio, and it'll take me a while to sort that out.

Something I just thought of--when I first powered up the set, the vane moved left and stayed left. There was a 4.5Kohm dog bone shunting across the meter. Through experimentation I found that with a 490 ohm shunt the meter stayed centered. Right now I have no shunt. When (if?) I get the radio working, I'll try putting the shunt back in.

Thanks much for the reply.