Beogram 4002 (5513): A New Arrival from California - First Impressions

Summer is over and the Beolover is back at his bench! The first Beogram I am working on this 'season' came a while ago from a customer in California. His unit is a Beogram 4002 Type 5513 with DC platter motor. This initial post discusses the condition of the unit.

This Beogram was shipped using a Beolover double box shipping container and everything went well without shipping damage. I extracted the unit from the inner box and put it on my bench. The first thing I noticed is that it already had a new reproduction hood from the Beoparts shop installed, but without a new aluminum trim:

I removed the hood and put it in a safe place. Sadly, these nice new hoods are already backordered for many months at the Beoparts shop, i.e. this hood is precious at this point.

The overall appearance of the unit is pretty good:

The keypad only shows minor use traces:

Unfortunately, the RPM panel has some scratches on the plexiglass window:

The corners of the wood frame are only slightly damaged:

Sadly, the platter has some significant scratching:

I removed the aluminum panels and platter to have a look 'below deck':

There are some unmistakable traces of 'previous human interaction'. The mounting screws of the tone arm are missing:

And there is some non-standard marking on the arm base:

I installed two new screws to secure the arm (there is fragile wiring inside that is best left undisturbed, and removing the arm can damage it).

I checked the continuity between the terminals on the cartridge tab and the corresponding pins on output board plug. Luckily it seems the wiring was not damaged as far as I can tell at this point. Damaged arm wiring can be very difficult to restore.

Other than this I found the usual fragments from degraded transport lock bushings throughout the enclosure. Here is a nice example lodged between some solder points on the main PCB:

Luckily, replacements for these bushings are available from the Beolover Store!

After this initial inspection I plugged the unit in and pressed start. The carriage started moving to the LP setdown point and the solenoid engaged. Also the platter motor rumbled to life. All positive signs!

In summary, this unit may be a good start for a complete restoration, unless there are more surprises in the tonearm department waiting for me. Stay tuned for updates.