Beogram 8000: New Arrival From The Motor City

A new Beogram 8000 project arrived yesterday. It is a restoration project and sounds like it has the typical problems this type of Beogram usually develops after almost forty years.

The turntable doesn't function correctly, the aluminum deck trim and tonearm compartment lids all have deteriorated attachment material (double-sided tape).  These are all things that can be remedied with new capacitors, solder re-flow, cleaning, lubricating and new mounting tape.

Here are pictures of the turntable before I start the work.

The first thing was quite a surprise. This Beogram arrived packed pretty well...styro-foam all around and tightly bubble-wrapped. However, it was not double-boxed and most importantly, the floating suspension was not locked down. The MMC-20CL cartridge was left mounted on the tonearm and the stylus guard was not attached. Very, very fortunately nothing appears to be damaged from the trip. A congratulations and thanks can go out to the delivery guys for their handling on this one.

The aluminum deck panel is loose like almost every Beogram 8000 still in their original state. The mounting tape is all deteriorated now. That old tape residue will be cleaned off and new 3M automotive double-sided tape will replace it.

The same problem exists with the bottom deck panel in the tonearm compartment.

Under the sub-platter I discovered the mount for the tachometer sensor guard had come loose. The locking washer/clip was loose inside the Beogram case.

Here is the Beogram case with the turntable floating chassis removed. On these restorations I prefer to remove everything to work on the individual assemblies separately rather than work on everything together and still attached. I believe there is less risk of accidentally damaging other components that might get in the way.

Here are the electronic components after they have been removed. The boards will get new electrolytic capacitors and all key solder joints will be re-flowed. I will also change out the IC socket for the processor with a new and better one.

One component I always want to protect is the dust cover assembly. By removing it I get it out of the way and makes it way easier to work on the tangential arm transport.

A word of warning - The Beogram 8000 and 8002 dust covers are a little tricky to remove. I use plastic pry tools like you find for working on cell phones.

The back of the Beogram dust cover attaches by a long plastic lip and a few plastic tabs. Many times there are broken and missing tabs because someone has yanked the cover off instead of carefully maneuvering the back of the cover to clear the tabs and lip.

The picture above and the next picture show the metal tab with the two hooks that mount the dust cover lid to the main Beogram cabinet. This must be the first thing detached when removing the dust cover assembly.

This last picture shows the tonearm compartment lid and deteriorated mounting tape. It will also be cleaned and new 3M automotive tape applied.

Now that the Beogram has been disassembled for restoration the real work can begin. I didn't find anything in the disassembly that is unexpected for this type of turntable. All of the original parts are there and intact so I am anticipating a straight forward restoration project without any weird surprises ( but then I almost always say that).