[font color=\'#000000\']thanks to all those who responded to my call for help. Michael i followed your suggestion, and it seemed to do the trick most of the time, enough anyways for me to be able to use the tripod. i ended up not switching cameras as much (between the xpan and 1v), and it was a real pain switching between vertical and horizontical on the 1v (using the RRS L bracket), because it always seemed to cause the most problem at sunrise time, when there was little time to fiddle with the problem knob.
Now that I am back homem does anyone know of what a good permanent fix would be?? I ordered from Adoroma, and from past expereience it's generally a pain to ship something back to the USA for repairs (customs/duty complications) I'm in calgary (Canada), and the arca-swiss is usually not in stock at the two main camera stores (The camera store, and Vistek - although vistek finally did get it in stock after i ordered from Adoroma).
Does the whole QR plate system usually need to be replaced or is there something that can be done to fix the problem?[/font]