Beogram 4004 Type 5526 - California Project - Initial Assessment and Cleaning

Here is an initial assessment and cleanup of a nice Beogram 4004 Type 5526 turntable sent to me from California.

 

The platter was packed separately so it isn't in the photos.

The keypad and wood trim look great.

You can see that the tonearm has a problem.  Fortunately it doesn't appear serious.  It is just missing one of two M2 screws that attach the arm to the base.  I have spares for that.

The dust cover is in decent shape although the aluminum trim piece has a buckle.
The owner sent me a new dust cover to replace this original one however so this Beogram will have the new one installed when I am finished.

The inside looked good at first glance.

When I removed the circuit boards and floating chassis I discovered some sort of spillage had occurred in this Beogram's past.  Some sort of liquid was spilled?

Amazingly, this Beogram has original transport bushings that are not dried out and crumbling apart.
They are intact and still soft.  I will leave them in place and coat them with a rubber treatment to make sure they stay soft.

Also note in this photo that I installed the missing M2 screw on the tonearm.  It still needs adjusting of course but that will come later.  For now the arm isn't dangling around anymore.

As I removed components from the floating suspension frame I looked for more remains of whatever was spilled into the Beogram.

Besides a dry film on the Beogram part surfaces, there were a few places where there is corrosion.

The suspension wire assembly at the back (where the spillage must have occurred) has corrosion so I will replace that part in the restoration process.

Not surprising the pivot posts for the tonearm operation were gummed up from the liquid that spilled.
The lever that lower and raise the arm would barely move.

I didn't want to wait until later to start cleaning this residue up so I decided to clean as I went through the initial assessment.

The cleaning up wasn't too bad.  I only had to apply corrosion cleaner to a few places.  Most of the residue scrubbed clean.

The arm lowering and raising assembly is back working smoothly again.

The pulley belt for the tangential arm is all stiff, dried and broken. That isn't unusual but is kind of surprising seeing how the transport lock bushings remained soft over the years.

Really amazing is the condition of the phono DIN plug.  It is corrosion free.

The old tangential arm drive pulley is going to be replaced with a new, aluminum pulley so I removed it and cleaned up the tangential arm drive spindle.  I also cleaned the guide rails, spindle nut and cover.

This Beogram 4004 is now at a point where I can begin working on the restoration of the mechanical parts for the turntable.