Lining up an 1176 is a demonic, evil task. I'm pretty sure I worked on a rev F once - not fun. The 'Q trimpot' is ridiculously sensitive and has enough backlash to bounce through the right setting for a good 3-5 minutes. Tapping the pot with a screwdriver to fine tune it seemed to be more predictable. This makes me think that any adjustments are going to warp with time and temperature anyway, so why are we bothering here. The instructions I read were very circular and sort of wrong, so maybe I found the wrong manual too? I cobbled a procedure together that seemed to work, but I chased my tail for a couple of hours, and I'm not sure why. Finally, the meters are garbage, and shouldn't be relied on for anything except providing GR induced wiggle to the operator. Do not trust zero or any levels that you read from them. Use an AP or a quality RMS voltmeter instead.
Best of luck! It is possible to make the machine do something somewhat consistently, but home dental surgery would be more pleasant.