Beogram 4002: Installation of a New Dust Cover and Aluminum Trim

I recently received the back of a Beogram 4002 dustcover from a customer in California for the installation of a new dust cover and aluminum trim (Beolover now offers this as a standard service). This shows the received parts on the bench:

My customer already had the hinges removed. This made it easy to check if they were not bent using a special tool that I made a while back when a new hood cracked due to bent hinges (they caused it to chafe on the metal back, and after a while it simply cracked off the hinges due to the stress that occurred every time it was opened or closed). In this case the hinges were perfectly 'spec':

I re-installed them on the black back part. This one was an earlier design that still had the nice set screws for the dowel pins that hold the hinges in place. The set screws are located under separate screws that cover the threads for the set screws:

After removing the screw the set screw can be screwed out. This shows it all the way out for clarity:

Normally, they only need to be loosened a turn or so and then the dowle pin can be stuck in from the side. This shows one of the hinges installed

and here the other:

This shows the components before putting them together: DKsoundparts hood, Beolover aluminum trim and the original hinge:

I strongly recommend doing a quick test with a new hood if it really works with the assembled dustcover back. The new DKsoundparts hoods are a bit 'tighter' than the original ones and the metal back gets closer to the plexiglass than an original one would. Therefore, it is crucial to make sure that there is no chafing. If there is the plexiglass will likely crack after a while. So I now always bolt the metal part in for a quick check if there is any contact between metal and plexiglass:

Once the parts are bolted together, I manually crank the hinge and watch closely if there is any issue. If there is interference, it will most likely be close to the sides. This shows the right hinge in the position with closest metal to plexiglass proximity. A satisfying ~1mm gap can be observed:

And there the other side with a similar gap:

This was no surprise since both of the hinges had passed by calibration tool at the beginning of my process. 

Sadly, later Beogram 4002/4004 do not have the set screws for the dowel pins anymore. Their pins are pressed in and in many instances they cannot be removed without the risk of damaging the black metal back. In such cases the only remedy when the hinges are bent enough to cause interference is Dremeling the plexiglass a bit until friction-free operation is achieved. Luckily, the 'region' that usually needs to be Dremeled is not visible during normal use of the turntable, i.e. this can be done without harming the appearance of the unit.

On to the installation!

I removed the hinge part and installed small 'filling pieces' in the channels that they designed in the back of the hoods where the aluminum trim needs to be installed. Not sure why there are these channels, maybe a requirement for the casting process. The original hoods do not have it. These channels are a bit annoying in that they make it difficult bending the aluminum trim smoothly. There is nothing under the trim when it gets bent, and so the bend is less 'sharp' in the area of the channels. These little 3D printed pieces try alleviating this issue. I epoxy them into place and then trim them with a razor blade:

The next step was determining the perfect center position of the aluminum trim. I do this with my alignment tools that clip to the hood. They make it very easy centering the trim:

Once the trim was centered I made a pencil mark across the trim and a piece of blue tape on the hood:

Then it was time to bold the back part in again. I usually put a bit of white carpenter glue on the threads in the hinges:

The idea is to hold the screws firmly in place since they cannot be bolted in very tightly. If they are bolted in too hard, the hood can crack again after a while. The white glue is soft enough that the screws can still be removed if need be, but it will hold them in place against vibrations etc...

Then it was time to glue the aluminum trim on and bend the side pieces. I use a specially designed bending block. It makes it easier to get a good bend around the corner:

The final step was inserting the hood bumpers on the front corners:

These bumpers come with the DKsoundparts hoods. And here a picture of the final result!

Beolovely! This hood assembly is ready to be returned to its Beogram 4002!