So I had nothing to lose and decided to explore the internals of the A80BHM that I posted a video above.


As I removed the gears, I couldn't help but notice that the potentiometer was pushed down inside the main spline gear. It didn't take very much effort to push down on the pinion of the motor and the entire assembly slid right out of the bottom of the case, it was if the white silicone gel they used had deteriorated:





Then simply used CA glue to remount the potentiometer back in place and CA glued the bottom of the circuit board back into the servo:





As luck will have it, the servo is working back to normal again, this is just another design flaw where they had threaded slots to secure the potentiometer with screws but cheaped out with silicone which failed over time... definitely a manufacturing defect!