Hi,
now I had a similar drive, an MK4026GAX, it was diagnosed in a famous (many people here think they're the only DR solution here) DR company in my country. It had a really worn spindle bearing, though it had pretty good sound. I could move the spindle in the direction of its axis in such a degre I could see it by bare eyes and the spindle could be tilted also. So it was worn anyway.
The quotation of the other company seemed a bit high to the customer so the drive got to me.
It was clicking as if the heads were bad, so I replaced the MHA. The clicking remained. Then I discovered the problem with the spindle so I moved the platter to another HDA together with the known good head (BTW the patient's heads worked well in the donor drive also).
Then I took a deep breath and turned the platter over (I placed it in the HDA with the bottom side up).
Now it is detected OK with no problem and I am retrieving the data.
So it is pretty aggravating that a 'big' company changes things (like flipping the platter in this case, but I have faced other changes in previously received drives from the same company) in the patient drive if the customer doesn't accept the quotation.
Sorry, this's got a a bit long

I just had to write it out of myself...
pepe