mmf-5 again

How are blancing the arm? How are determining how much tracking force you are applying?
The anti-skate will pull the arm to the spindle or the center of the record.

Is you turntable level? (very important)

Boxingnun,

I used to own a MMF5 & never had a problem with it.

Like Rockinroni suggested above, ENSURE your 'table is level. Use a external bubble level i.e. do not rely on the level provided on the plinth.

If you have a stock Goldring 1012, then playing weight or VTF should be 1.75gms. Dial it in thru the marked counter-weight. If you have a Shure gauge, double check the VTF.

Place the anti-skate thread in the MIDDLE slot (of the provided 3 slots) on that metal protusion near the arm pivot.

You should be ready to go! Your 'table MUST be level before you can even begin to set VTF & anti-skating.

Oh, defeat the anti-skating (i.e. do not attach the anti-skating thread) while setting/dialing in the VTF.

This will sound very stupid, but here it goes. Once the arm is balanced at 0 (sits on the record), I turn the little guage on the weight to 0, then turn the whole thing until the guage is about 2/5 of the way towards the 5. The table is level. I listened to it last night and I loved it, but I can't get it to keep going.

YOU MUST BE BLANCING THE ARM WRONG.
You need to get the arm to balance like a scale in the middle, in the same plane as the record. Once you have the arm perfectally blanked equal weight on the front and rear. The arm will float level this is where you set the gauge to 0

Then you add weight by turning the counter weight so it moves forward on the armtube this will apply down force to the front of the arm so it is heaver than the back of the arm. turn the counter weight from 0 to 1&3/4 Tracking force it should be 1&3/4 grams.

You are starting with tracking force applied then you must be backing off on the down force this is the only I can see for the arm to be coming towards the rest. And skipping you do not have enough tracking force.

Let me know how this works out for you
Ron