Hi. I have the same azimuth stifness problem with my new AZ-GTi.
I have carefully read the posts by axle01 and TSRobot (thank you!). So please let me just check whether I have gotten your point correctly or not. As far as I understand from your posts, the problem is not that the grub screws in the locking ring are too tight, but rather that the locking ring itself is pressed too hard onto the dark element below... So that the plastic washer made by TSRobot is effective in making the friction between the locking ring and the dark element below less stiff... Am I correct?
Thanks, Daniel