Beogram 4002 (5523): A New Arrival from Colorado - First Impressions

I recently received a Beogram 4002 (Type 5523) from Colorado for restoration. It arrived well-packaged in a Beolover issued double-box. This is how the deck looked like when I put it on my bench:

The hood is pretty scratched up, but it seems the hinges are still o.k, and most of the scratches are on the outside. This means it could be polished back to a decent state. I removed the hood and found nice aluminum surfaces and a keypad that only shows light use-traces (the coating of the touch areas is slightly shinier than the rest).

The plinth corners are near-pristine:

The next step was removing the aluminum plates. When I pulled the plinth forward for their release, it turned out that the metal frames that are glued to the plinth are coming loose (a frequent issue due to decaying contact cement):

I also found a single spring, which is from one of the hood-mounting bolts (these springs keep the bolts propped up for easy mounting of the hood):

After removal of the hinge bar in the back of the deck it turned out that the second spring seems missing. Luckily, there are suitable replacements available.

Below deck this Beogram appears mostly original without obvious traces of previous 'human interaction'. This is the best state for a restoration, since it makes it much less likely to run into unexpected problems.

I plugged the unit in and pressed start. The carriage started moving and the platter motor spun. The carriage stopped at the LP setdown point and the solenoid actuated for arm lowering. Then I pressed Start once more and the carriage traveled to the inner turnaround point, and then returned to its home position. All good signs!

In summary, this unit is a pretty good starting point for a restoration, which will return this Beogram to a like-new functional condition.