Beogram 4000: A New Arrival From Australia - First Look

This post gives a first assessment of a Beogram 4000 that I received a few months ago from a customer in Australia for a full restoration.

The unit came very well packaged in a foam padded double box, so there were no shipping damages. I extracted the unit and put it on the bench:

It has very nice aluminum surfaces. The platter is almost without nicks and there is only a small ding in the platter surround, probably from transporting the unit without tightening the transport locks at some point:

The only real blemish is the damaged left front corner of the wood plinth:

Luckily there are now very nice replacement frames available from Christian Hakansson. They are CNC machined from solid wood and look just stunning! 

The other corner is still in good shape:

The hood hinge has the often seen corrosion:

This can usually be cured by sanding and re-coating.

I removed the panels and the platter and had a look 'below deck':

After this visual inspection I installed a new carriage pulley (the original one had come off) and belt, and plugged the unit in and pressed ON. The carriage started moving and found the LP setdown point, but the solenoid did not activate. Also the platter motor did not run. It only did a little twitch. Nothing out of the ordinary, really. These units often have issues with their power transistors.

Also noticed a very harsh almost bluish back light (my camera did emphasize the blue shade, to me it looked just like a cold white) of the arm position indicator:

Furthermore, the 33 and 45 trimmer backlights seem out of order.

So, while the unit overall looks pretty original, there was definitely some previous 'human creativity' involved. I am curious about what I will find in this keypad cluster!...;-).

Overall, I think this Beogram 4000 is an excellent starting point for a successful restoration. Stay tuned for the restoration report!