Jim:
Please, tell us more (not snarking, really want to know, as this is a question I have had myself).
Thanks in advance.
The maintenance regulations (primarily 47CFR43) and the Bible can be used to prove or disprove anything you wish. And, like the Bible, the FAR was written when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Radios? We don't need no steenking radios.
The point being, an "appliance major repair" is limited to 5 items ... calibration of instruments, calibration of radios, disassembly of complex hydraulic valves, and overhaul of pressure carburetors.
So the question becomes, is ADJUSTING the screw on the back of the nav head an ADJUSTMENT or a CALIBRATION. Since the FAR is silent on how to deal with this issue, we need to turn elsewhere. That elsewhere can be other FAA publications or, as a last resort, the dictionary.
In this case the dictionary comes up way short, so we turn to see if any other publication deals with the issue (more later). Sadly, it is not well defined.
So we turn to the industry, where I have resided for the last fifty years. When we say "calibration", we mean a nose-to-toes alignment of the entire system. Merely turning up a volume control or adjusting the squelch, or in this case tweaking an easily accessible and plainly labeled control to center the needle is an adjustment, not a calibration. Nor is it a "radio" in the strictest terms. A radio is an appliance that allows communications to take place on the radio waves. That nav head could no more be called a radio than a Chevy be called a Cessna.
So where do we draw the line between MAJOR and MINOR repairs? Ah, the FAA has dealt with this issue smack on. In a document called "Plane Sense" published by the FAA Western Region some thirty years ago, the judgment call between major and minor IS IN THE HANDS OF THE PERSON PERFORMING THE WORK. Where it is not SPECIFIC in the FAR, the FAA grants wide latitude to the person performing the work.
Similarly, the FAR is silent when it comes to removal and replacement of an identical part onto the airplane. Identical meaning make, model, and serial number. Simple removal and replacement are not specifically spoken to, so again we rely on the person doing the work. Harry Hamhand may not be qualified to blow his nose in an airplane, but a person who has been working in and around airplanes since Christ was a Seaman Deuce may be more qualified than any of us to rassle an instrument out, take it for repair to a duly qualified & certificated person, and reinstall it. The fact that the FAA has chosen not to update the preventive maintenance part of the FAR in fifty some years is no reason for us not to look at the spirit of the regs if the letter of the regs is silent.
Of course, nothing I say will prevent some eager beaver FAA puke from jamming it up your hiney if he or she feels like it. Just do it and shut up about it.
Jim