The first project that I am undertaking while in Germany this year is a Beogram 4000. It arrived well packaged from Berlin. I had a first look. Unfortunately, the otherwise nice-condition hood of this unit got cracked on one corner due to poor packaging by the ebay seller when it was shipped initially. Here are a few pictures of the unit. Overall the cosmetic condition is pretty good:
The aluminum surfaces are mostly intact. There is some scratching where the arms assembly touched the small plate during shipping. The seller probably forgot to engage the transport locks.
The plinth is also very good. The right side is pristine
but the left corner came loose. But it should be no problem to glue things back together.
This is the sad and completely unnecessary damage to the hood:
I removed the plates and had a look. The unit seems largely original, and no obvious signs of previous human interaction are noticeable. Of course the carriage pulley came loose since the seller forgot to secure the carriage:
The platter motor looks different from all 4000s I worked on so far. It seems this is an early version, which is supported by the short serial number and the belt guides near the pulley:
I switched the unit to 220V, installed a new aluminum pulley and a new belt and then plugged it in. I pressed ON, and the carriage started sluggishly moving to the LP setdown point, and the solenoid engaged. Also the strobe light came on, which is great!
Despite the poor ebay experience, the red position indicator also survived un-cracked.
In summary, I think this should be a more or less straight forward restoration. The only unknown is the platter motor. It seems to run nicely, though, i.e. it may be just fine.
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