New tuners are almost impossible to turn

That doesn't look right, the screws aren't in straight.
Was there some installation difficulties you're not telling us about?
It appears to me they might be bound up in there!

 

Remove everything, plug the old holes & start over.

 

I agree with the above, that does not look right. The tuners are not flush which could be they are pressed hard to one side of the hole, thus causing the tension.

 

For those who run into this problem, you are not the first. Fender actually had the same problem. It occurs because those "nubs" that hold the U-shaped part over the stem of the tuner key to the base plate protrude and keep the plate from resting flat on the headstock. When the screws are tightened, they distort the base plate and that causes binding. The way Fender fixed it was to mill small divots into the headstock right where those nubs occur so the base plate could lay flush. You need to mill those divots into the headstock if they aren't already there when installing this kind of tuner.

 

Yup, any time the shaft is not square with the bushing.... you get binding

 

Bad tuner design, surprising for Gotoh.
Just because nubs are traditional doesn't make them good or worth copying.
I wonder if it's because traditionalists would complain they're not identical to the original design, even though it's bad design?

 

I would say that is true about most of the re-issues on the market. There may be some items that warrant the veneration they get as "vintage", but a slavish copy of the originals ignores all the advances that have been made in the years since. These vintage tuners are a poignant case.

 

You'd have to blame Kluson for that design. Gotoh is just copying the original design so that people with older basses with the divots already present can replace worn tuners. They also make this design with a flat back so they can be used on headstocks without the divots, for more money of course, and yes indeed if you don't divot the headstock with the original design tuners they can be problematic.

 

Jeeze! How hard is it to make eight little divots that won't be seen by anyone unless you take the tuners (that you love...) off?

 

Those are the Reso-O-lite's. These are the one's I was talking about. Vintage Bass Guitar Tuning Machines for Fender w/ flat back

 

Don't the nubs hold in the part that retains the worm gear? If those were removed... I'm not too clear on this, as I don't have one in front of me....

 

Yes if the nubs are removed from the original design tuners they will come apart. The flat back ones as in the link I posted above are machined differently, so nothing protrudes from the back and they lay flat.

 

That's not how it works here on TB sonny.

Even though you think you've solved your problem there will still be two pages of people late to the thread that really want you to know how much experience they have and umpteen different ways you could fix your (now non-existent) problem.