Hi Gary,

If you can gently pry those pads off and move them inward so they are inside the radius of the dial and of the cutout notch, that will fix the problem.

I had to do the same thing to mine since they were too close to the edge.

Those pads are what the top part of the base rides on, so they are very necessary.

You could also replace them with magic sliders (found at Lowes, Home Depot, etc.). That is the brand name, so just ask someone in the store and they should be able to direct you to them.

I've read that having them too far toward the outer edge might cause some problems with motion anyway, so you might just end up improving the azimuth motion of your mount in the process.