Beomaster 8000: Tackling the Lid Damper

On these last two Beomaster 8000 and Beocord 9000 projects the owner had to have the damper devices for the lids removed as they had begun to leak fluid. This appears to be a common problem with the grease used by B&O on these series of components (Beomaster 8000, Beomaster 6000, Beocords 8000-9000).  Of course these these devices are thirty plus years old now so that has to be taken into account.

The Beocord 9000 I worked on doesn't have its damper anymore so I will replace it with a spare from another Beocord. The Beomaster 8000 damper is still intact although removed from the unit.

Here is a picture of the dampers I have available for this project and some of my future projects. The damper in the center has the most leakage of the bunch. Also shown are an original lid lever for the Beomaster 8000 and a 3D replacement lever that Beolover can provide. While the damper devices are the same between the various Beosystem components of this series, the levers are not. The Beomaster 6000 and Beocords require a different size lever. In the picture below the lever out of this Beomaster 8000 is not original. It is a pretty good hand-made replacement carved out of plastic. However, the plastic has become quite brittle and starts to break with the slightest pressure applied. The other lever is the Beolover 3D printed replacement. That is what I will use on this Beomaster.

This next picture shows a few of these dampers opened up. The two on the far right still functioned to some extent. The others no longer did much as their grease is pretty much gone. Two of the dampers had their plastic mounting clips melted in place as an attempt to keep the device sealed. I had to cut them open and they were pretty empty so the grease leaked out anyway. When I rebuild these my plan is to use black hot glue. I think it will hold secure enough yet allow disassembly in the future.

The next to last damper device on the right is the only one that had an additional, thin, white washer installed. I don't know if that is original or something that was added later by someone.

Here is a closer up picture of the dampers that still had functioning grease. Next to them is the replacement damping grease I will use. The thing to figure out next is how much grease is required for these dampers to operate correctly. Should the entire housing be filled? I hope not. One tube of this special damping grease is about $50 USD so it is quite an expensive product. However, it is made for the purpose of damping and claims it will not break down under high temperature.

Here is a cleaned out damper with the Nyogel applied. It is ready to be sealed up.