Beogram 4000: A Very Corroded New Arrival from Sweden

I recently received a Beogram 4000 from Sweden. It arrived double-boxed and there was no shipping damage. A good sign! I extracted it from the boxes and put it on the bench. This post summarizes my first impressions.

First the good: This Beogram 4000 came with pretty decent aluminum surfaces. The platter is in good condition. The lettering on the arms cover was protected and therefore survived. The big and small panels are also pretty good. But we will see after cleaning them how good they are. The unit is pretty dirty.

I took the panels out. Under the hood it seems original as far as I can tell. The main capacitors show signs of leakage, which is almost to be expected at this point in time. The red position indicator is also o.k.. So far so good:

The plinth corners are pristine:

And now the bad:

I have never seen such an amount of corrosion on the black enclosure parts. It is normal that there are a few small spots where the black coating comes off, but this Beogram breaks all records:

Even on the bottom of the enclosure is a lot of corrosion:

The leaf springs that float the chassis are also rusty:

It seems that this deck sat in a humid basement or similar for many years. The hood is also badly scratched, but can be polished. The hood hinges also seem to be in good condition, i.e. this cover can be saved:

In summary, I need to conclude that this deck is a difficult starting point for a restoration, and it will need to be combined with parts from other donor units if a like-new condition is desired.

I did not plug it in at this point since I am concerned that the corrosion may have caused some components to short circuit, i.e. my approach will need to be a bit more careful to get this running for the first time.