Beogram 8002 From North Texas: Starting with some cabinet repairs

Before jumping right into the Beogram 8002 circuit board restoration tasks I decided to start with a couple of cabinet repairs.  There are two necessary cabinet repairs on this Beogram 8002 that require epoxy and 24 hours of epoxy curing.

The first repair is on the securing post for the main circuit board.
On the Beogram 8002 (and BG8000) the main circuit board mounts onto the underside of the cabinet lid.
There are guides that the circuit board slides onto, then a post with a rubber grommet that secures the circuit board in place.

When the circuit board is installed it should look like this.

The circuit board fits into the slot of the rubber grommet. The grommet slides over the mounting post.

On this current Beogram 8002 project the mounting post for the rubber grommet is missing.

I have never seen that before. It makes me wonder how that could break like that.
The broken post and rubber grommet were missing...until I removed the Beogram 8002 component parts from the frame.

Underneath the floating chassis was the broken post and the grommet.
Here is a photo of the broken piece along with two candidates for a replacement.

I could epoxy the original post back in place but I don't think it would be secure enough to last.  It would surely break off again.

My fix was to fashion a replacement post with a hole through the center.
I used a drill bit and an M3 tap to make a threaded hole for a mounting screw that would go through the replacement post and into the Beogram cabinet lid frame.

With the threaded holes, an M3 screw and some JBWeld epoxy the replacement post should be able to stand up to any pressure against it.

After the epoxy cured for 24 hours I fit the grommet onto the post.  Everything feels very tight and secure.

That takes care of one cabinet problem.

The second issue is the typical problem of the fixed hinge catch for the dust cover lid lowering mechanism.

The Beogram 8002 dust cover has a leaf spring with a sliding bracket on the end that fits into the fixed hinge catch on the underside of the dust cover.  That hinge catch needs to be solidly attached to the dust cover.

The original B&O factory installation used double-side foam tape for the attachment. After over 30 years the original foam tape deteriorates and the catch becomes loose. That results in the lowering mechanism for the dust cover to fail.

Here is the hinge catch with the deteriorated tape.

I soaked the old tape residue with Goo Gone then cleaned everything up.

I applied some clear epoxy for this repair and then put some weight on the hinge catch to hold it in place for 24 hours.

After curing for 24 hours this hinge catch should be ready to use.

I will put these cabinet pieces aside now and start on the circuit board restoration tasks.

Beogram 8002: Glueing on the Aluminum Panels, Installing the Hood and a Test Drive with Chico Hamilton on Impulse!

Time to put this Beogram 8002 back together! It came a bit as a kit with the hood removed and the aluminum panels detached. As usual I glued the panel around the platter on with epoxy using 4-40 washers to bridge the gap between the plastic shell and the panel:

After the epoxy had hardened it was time to glue on the panel:

After this it was time to put the hood back on. It simply clips into place around the back part of the plastic shell of the enclosure. The only sweat producing part is to get the leaf spring inserted the correct way while attaching the hood. This shows how the spring is to be inserted:

since I only have two hands, I fixed the spring in place with some Scotch tape:

This helps a lot since the assembly is upright during this attachment operation. Once the hood assembly was in place it was time to attache the smaller aluminum panel.

As usual, I attached it with three layers of double sided tape. That shimmed it up to the level achieved with the 1980s style foam adhesive tape B&O used back then to attach these panels to the plastic parts.

After all this it was time to give this 8002 a spin. I selected a recently acquired original pressing of Chick Hamilton's gorgeous "Passin' Through" album (Impulse A-29).

The second side is an amazing, almost psychedelic experience that would probably convert the most ardent digital music purist that vinyl is the way to go! Such a direct, warm and vibrant experience! Absolutely amazing! I wish I could find a time machine and go see a Hamilton performance live in the 60s!

Beogram 8000: Glueing the Aluminum Panels Back On

I still have to see a Beogram 8000 that did not have aluminum panels that came loose from the aged double sided tape that holds them in place. And the one I am currently rebuilding was not exception. I usually glue the main panel that encloses the platter with epoxy using 4-40 washers to bridge the gap between plastic enclosure and the panel. The washers help avoid bonding issues since the panel does not sit flush with the underlying plastic part due to a lip on the outer perimeter on which the panel rests. I use carpenter clamps and a weight to hold the panel down while the epoxy sets:

For this particular Beogram 8000 we decided to not use epoxy for the tonearm cover since it has a small flaw on one corner, and later exchange needs to be possible once a suitable panel has been found as replacement. Therefore, I used double sided tape like in the original setup:

This shows a couple of tape strips carefully applied to the hinge:

After orienting the panel to sit parallel alongside the hood and lining up with its back I pressed it into place, and that was it:

All good now...Back to playing some vinyl with this unit to make sure I did not miss anything. I always like to give restored units a couple weeks of intense play to make sure there are no intermittent issues.

Beogram 8000: Adjusting Horizontal Parallelism and Glueing the 3D Printed Plastic Tabs to the Carriage

The Beogram 8000 seems to like its new 3D printed plastic tabs that I implemented a few days ago. So I decided to epoxy them in place for long term stability. To be able to clamp them I needed to remove the tonearm carriage from the rail that I could turn it up to apply the clamps:

After applying epoxy to the remaining 'stumps' I clamped the new tabs in place:

After 5 min the epoxy had settled, and I took the opportunity to also adjust the horizontal tonearm parallelism. The adjustment screw can only be accessed from underneath the carriage, so this was the moment:

After adjustment the tonearm was at the same height as the sensor arm:

Lovely!