Beogram 8002 From North Carolina: Finishing the Reassembly and Playing Records

I really wanted to start listening to this Beogram 8002 today so I continued on from the previous post and finished the reassembly of the turntable.

The remaining reassembly tasks were to attach the dust cover, tonearm compartment lid, hinge bar and a couple of trim pieces.

I started with the dust cover and the tonearm compartment lid mount. Both of those attach to the back of cabinet with the long metal bar hinge. I lined things up, applied a little dry lubricant on the bar and slid it through the hinge mounts to secure the lids.

Notice how flat the back of the dust cover lid looks now that the hinge back part has been changed (from the original cracked one). 

With the dust cover in its closed position I checked how two new dust cover lid spacers I printed up fit.
They work really nice as replacements for the original pads that had deteriorated.

Before I install the leaf spring damper to the dust cover lid I changed focus over to the tonearm compartment lid. It needs to be reattached to its hinged mounting piece with some of the same 3M VHB tape I used on the deck panel. 

While the tonearm compartment lid has been off I refilled the damping mechanism for its lowering lever with new damping grease (Nyogel 767A).

Here is the reassembly of the tonearm compartment lid.

Now I can finally install and setup the dust cover damping spring assembly. It seems kind of funny finishing up with the thing that started out all of the cabinet problems.

The installation was non-eventful (as it should be). The leaf spring fat end fit under the set screw while the narrow end fit into the bracket that presses the rotating hinge against the stationary hinge (mounted to the dust cover).  The adjustment of the leaf spring tension was easy and the task was soon done.

The hinge bar remains straight now and the dust cover damping works properly.

The last two pieces were the trim piece to hide the dust cover damping mechanism and the small, metal lid that fits under the tonearm assembly.

This now looks like a proper Beogram 8002.

I grabbed an MMC-2 cartridge, a Beogram 8002 phono cable and moved the Beogram to my office stereo. The first record I grabbed was a new pressing of Band of Gypsies by Jimi Hendrix. It is a live recording I have always liked and should sound great on the Beogram 8002.

I gave it a listen as I created this post.  It doesn't get much better than this.