Beogram 4002 (5503): Unit Switches Immediately to 45 RPM After Pressing Start

The Beogram 4002 (5503) that I am currently restoring exhibited a strange phenomenon when I tested it the first time after rebuilding all its functional parts (more about this process in a subsequent post):

After pressing START the carriage began to move while it immediately switched to 45 RPM. Pressing the 33 key switched it back to 33 RPM, but only as long as the key was pressed.

This immediately suggested that either TR3 or TR2 had an issue. Let's have a look at the relevant section of the circuit diagram:

This is how the speed selection works:

The base of TR3 is connected to the collector of TR4, and the base of TR4 is connected to the collector of TR3. Resistors 5R1 and 5R2 act as pull-up resistors together with the light bulbs IL1/2. I guess the resistors were added to keep the deck working even if a bulb burned out.

This causes a flip-flop behavior: When the base of TR3 is shorted to ground via the 45 switch in the keypad or TR2 (that is activated by the carriage as it travels towards the set-down point for singles), TR3 is turned off for a moment, causing its collector to go high, which in turn pulls the base of TR4 up, and that drives the collector of TR4 to GND since TR4 turns on. This then keeps the base of TR3 permanently grounded and the deck is running at 45 RPM (via switching TR6 on which changes the oscillation frequency of the Wien Oscillator to drive the AC motor at a higher RPM).

The opposite happens when the 33 key is pressed. This causes TR4 to be off and TR3 on, and so TR5 is turned on running the oscillator at a lower frequency.

I removed TR3 and checked it with my transistor tester:

Apparently it had turned into a voltage divider!...;-).

I replaced TR3 with a generic BC547B and that fixed the issue.