Hey guys thanks for the immediate replies. That's all good advice.
Been doing a little more investigation and it is now obvious that who ever was servicing and dismantling the machine at the dealer for shipping was not paying close attention, doing sloppy work and left out screws, bolts and some parts. (Remember the dealer sells REBUILT MACHINES.) Now, I'm pretty sure the machine head had been mounted on a table with motor at the dealer but. I bought just the head since the table and motor were $300 hundreds extra and the cost of shipping them was an additional $150 over the $100 paid for shipping the head alone.
So, clearly the problem is that the bobbin case cap is missing leading to the thread tangling around the bobbin post......duh! Feel pretty stupid about not recognizing that immediately since I've owned a couple of industrial machines but was willing to believe the dealer, a man with forty plus years in the business and a self -professed mechanical genius trained in Germany, that no cap was used on this model. WTH??? I sent the dealer the same pictures, yet they argue no cap was used on this model because it is a large bobbin "heavy duty" model. Allowing for benefit of the doubt, let's just say somebody was maybe tired and perhaps just confused.
So, which cap is required? Well, obviously a cap for a model 1245....but not exactly because there are early and late versions for the 1245. More research has determined that my machine is the early version with the long hook and without the integral thread guard and sharing the same bobbin case as the earlier Pfaff model 545. That said, I've just ordered a 1245 bobbin cap and hope it is the right one since it was advertised as a 545/1245 cap from Raphael's in Montreal. Absolutely great people and providers of my Techsew GA5-1. Highly recommend these guys. We'll see if this gets the job done.