Beogram 4004 (5526): When Disaster Strikes - Ripped Off Leaf Spring Adjustment Bolt

I made good progress with the restoration of the Beogram 4004 (Type 5526) that I recently received from a customer in California. Until I came to the part where I adjust the floating chassis and align the platter etc...what is usually a tedious, but fairly straight forward process quickly turned sour with this unit, giving me fodder for another post in my 'when disaster strikes' series!...;-):

What happened was that when I tried to adjust the height of the three leaf springs to get the floating chassis level, one of the adjustment bolts ripped off. I thought it was turning a bit difficult, but in this case it turned out that one of the previous owners had epoxied the nuts to the threaded sections of these bolts. Since I usually use a ratchet with a nut to turn these screws, I did not see that I was actually twisting the bolt and not just turning the nut!

This shows the assembly before the disaster struck (luckily I took a picture after straightening out the grossly bent alignment pins for the aluminum cover plates). The bolt in question is behind the pin to the right: 

This is the section that came off:

After removing the leaf spring it looked like this. The bolt had separated at a level flush with the threaded hole in the enclosure bottom. Pretty Beounlovely!!:

At least, after heating the bolt with my solder station blower I was able to get the nut separated from the bolt fragment:

The next step was dealing with the broken off bolt fragment that sat flush in its threads. Such twisted off bolts are dreaded by anyone how deals with mechanical things! It is usually a bit of a mess to deal with such bolts. Since I only have a mini drill press for delicate tasks, I opted for drilling the M4 bolt out in three steps. First I made a mark with a center punch as centered as possible on the bolt surface. Then I used a 2 mm drill to hollow out the bolt. I used some oil to prevent the drill from getting stuck:

The next step was re-drilling the hole with a 3 mm drill:

And then I finally went in with a 4mm bit. This cleaned out all the remnants of the bolt:

Then I Installed a M4-45mm stainless steel flat head bolt with a nut and a washer:

This was possible since the mounting posts for these adjustment bolts are hollowed out and accessible from the bottom of the enclosure. The flat head of the bolt fit perfectly and flush into the hollow:

And this is how it looked with the spring installed again:

Looks like it never happened! Beolovely!

Beogram 4002 (5513): A New Arrival on Beolover's Bench

Over the Holidays another Beogram 4002 (5513) arrived for some TLC. Today I did a first evaluation. The packing job was excellent and featured some new ideas how to safely package a Beogram. Here are some impressions:

The hood was filled with soft foam blocks to hold the sub platter and the RPM panel down:

One of the foam blocks contained the MMC20E cartridge, which traveled well:

Here an impression after taking it out:

I appreciated the precisely cut cardboard that held the sub-platter in place. The arm support also worked very well:

I took the hood off and the back part of the enclosure to give the inside an examination. It all looked original and pretty clean. Then I plugged the unit in and pressed start. The carriage started moving, but at the 30cm set-down point it lowered the arm, but then kept going at a rapid pace. An examination of the tracking system revealed a bent tracking sensor aperture which is stuck in the bulb housing. 

So that definitely needs rebuilding. Also the arm linkages are somewhat hard to move due to the usual hardened lubricants. Nothing that a good cleaning and re-lubricating could not fix.

I also noticed that the motor runs pretty rough, so it also needs to be taken apart and cleaned and it needs to get some fresh lubricant injected into its sleeve bearings.

Other than that, as far as I can tell right now this unit is in pretty good condition mechanically.

Cosmetically, the plinth is in great condition, the aluminum panels could do with a deep clean and the keypad has the usual three-finger usage pattern, but not too bad.

The hood, as usual, could do with some polishing.

All in all no obvious show-stoppers. It seems this unit is a great starting point for a restoration. This Beogram has an excellent potential to be as good as new once I am done with it.

Beogram 4002 (5523): A Second Beogram 4002 (5523) Arrived for some TLC - First Impressions

Another Beogram 4002 (5523) arrived for some TLC. When I took this unit out of the box I realized that the MMC4000 cartridge was still on the arm and that the transport locks were not engaged. So naturally I was a bit worried about the state of the cartridge.

Especially, since it turned out that the foam pads that were supporting the arms had disappeared into he enclosure and the tone arm was swinging freely without any support under it:

I took the cartridge out and gave it a good examination. It seems the low weight of the arm and blue tape underneath the needle prevented the worst and the cantilever and tip survived:

I put the cartridge on the Beogram 4000 that I just restored and gave it a spin. Miles Davis "In a Silent Way" (MOFI reissue). It sounds pretty good, so I think we were lucky on this one.

After this relief I checked out the turntable. The hood is in pretty good condition, probably the best original one I have seen so far. There are a few scratches near the aluminum trim, which is missing the Beogram 4002 insignia. This indicates that the hood may have been polished a bit at some point. It is difficult to get all the way to the aluminum edge with polishing materials, so if not enough attention is paid, there is usually a strip of poorly polished plexiglass. There are also a few telltale swirls across the hood surface.

Then I removed the hood and had a look inside. The panels are pretty good, albeit a bit grimy. Nothing that Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Pads could not straighten out:

Unfortunately, the keypad has a severely damaged START key, where the coating is worn to the metal surface:

Otherwise the exterior is pretty good, excellent veneer corners, but, unfortunately there is a scratch in the veneer up front:

Maybe this can be sanded/polished out.

Below deck the main damage is fully disintegrated transport lock bushings of the orange type. The orange ones are always crumbling, while the grey ones typically can be left alone. That the transport locks were not engaged did not help this issue since there must have been constant impact on the bushings during the rigors of shipping.

At any rate this is not difficult to fix, and the 400x units are of a pretty rugged all-metal design, which makes permanent shipping damage unlikely even if the locks are not engaged.

After this cosmetics assessment I looked into the carriage issues that were described to me: I was told that the carriage does not stop at the set-down point after activating START. I plugged in and did a test drive, and indeed the carriage continued running towards the center even with platter absent (in this case the control system comes to the conclusion that a record is present since there is no reflective surface). However, the solenoid engaged at the correct 30 cm point. This immediately told me that the mechanism is working, but that the tracking sensor needs adjustment. Indeed, moving the tonearm to the right with a finger immediately stopped the erratic forward motion. So this will be an easy fix. I also noticed that the arm mechanism is a bit stiff due to hardened lubricants, i.e. this needs some attention to achieve smooth operation.

I also noticed that the DC motor runs a bit rough. This is an indication that it needs some lubrication of its sleeve bearings and a cleaning of the commutator and the brushes.

The bottom line on this Beogram is that it is a nice starting point for a restoration. Nothing abnormal considering the age. I am confident it can be brought back up to specifications.

Beogram 4002 (5513): A New Arrival - A First Look!

Another Beogram 4002 (5513) arrived recently. After an unplanned (yet interesting) delay with the Beogram 4000 that I recently rebuilt, it was time to have a look. I extracted it from the double box where an excellent packing job had prevented any shipping damage. A detailed video about how to do pack a Beogram properly is shown here.

Once I had it out, I took the hood off and had a look at the panels:

They are in very nice condition. The keypad shows the usual triple digit usage pattern indicating not too heavy use:

The STOP key is a bit pulled up, but not too bad. Then I had a look under the hood:

Everything looks quite nice...no obvious signs of 'human intervention' (usually the most challenging  and interesting repairs result from that...;-) and pretty clean. Also the transport lock bushings are still good, so there was no need to put the vacuum cleaner to it. Then it was time to plug it in. I pressed START, and nothing! After checking the fuses, which have corroded holders,

I measured the voltage at the reservoir capacitor, which yielded a healthy >30V reading. After establishing the presence of power, I then determined that P5 had come loose during transport. I plugged it back in and tried again. Now the carriage started limping hesitantly (due to a loose servo belt and hardened lubricants) towards the center of the record. Once it made it to the 30 cm set-down point it properly activated the solenoid, but nothing further happened. Moving the linkages by hand immediately suggested that the lubricants are hardened and that the mechanism needs cleaning and re-lubrication. A first sign of this was the non-parallel tonearm when I had a first look under the hood:

This is usually a sure sign that the arm linkage is stuck. So far so good. It seems mechanically all it needs is a good cleaning and some lubrication to get going again. After this I assembled the panels and put the platter on with the belt to check the platter and arm alignments. As usual the platter sits too low and the arms are not horizontal...this needs to be adjusted.

Other than that the cosmetic condition of this deck is really nice. The hood could use a deep polishing since it has a few deep gashes that can be felt with a fingernail:

One really wonders why people do not put a plastic bag and some foam pad on their Beogram hoods before they store them in their basements. But such is the world. Luckily, there are good polishing materials available these days.

Lastly, I had a look at the MMC20CL cartridge that came with the deck:

The sapphire cantilever and the tip looked pristine and everything appears well-aligned. So I stuck it on the Beogram 4000 that I am re-testing again before shipping, and put Eberhart Weber's "Fluid Rustle" on a pristine ECM pressing that I recently obtained from ebay and cranked up the volume on my Beomaster 6000 4-Channel. Absolutely gorgeous! This cartridge seems to be in pretty good condition!

So, the bottom line is that this is a very good starting point for a happy Beogram 4002 restoration! The deck is in a great cosmetic condition, which is usually the most important concern when it comes to investing money into a restoration. 

Beogram 4002 (5521): Adjusting Platter and Chassis

The looks of a Beogram 400x strongly depend on the platter being properly aligned with the aluminum panels surrounding it. When correctly done the platter aluminum surface is flush with the surrounding panels, i.e. the black 'ribs' on the platter protrude above a flat aluminum surface. This adjustment is pretty tricky since several parameters must be brought in alignment. Over time I found that this adjustment is often complicated by a sensor arm that is not completely parallel to the floating chassis plane. The adjustment procedures outlined in the service manual and featured in my videos is based on the assumption that the sensor arm is parallel, i.e. if it is not the process gets 'distorted' and one ends up with one or more parameters out of spec once the platter is flush with the aluminum surfaces (most often the resulting problem is that the chassis is tilted after the adjustment in such cases and therefore chafes with the transport lock bushings).

So my most recent approach is to first get the sensor arm as parallel as possible to the floating chassis that holds the platter. The arm is on the carriage which travels on two precision rods that are held in fixtures where the rod height can be adjusted with set-screws from below. This picture shows one of these fixtures:

Unfortunately, the adjustment of these screws would require to remove the floating chassis, which is a bit painful.

This led me to a different approach: First I disconnected the floating chassis from the leaf springs that hold it up that it sat flat on the 'floor' of the enclosure. Then I put in the aluminum panels and measured the parallelism of the sensor arm relative to the panels at the lateral locations of the two rods. In this particular case I identified a 1.5 mm difference between the back and the front rod locations. Then I designed 3D printed spacers to lift the front rod up by 1.5 mm:

I did the same for the other end of the rod. Now the arm was parallel:

The next step was to get the platter parallel to the sensor arm in a 23 mm distance between top of the arm and the platter aluminum surface. Essentially I did the procedure shown in my video. Basically, what you should find is that the platter should be pretty close to parallel to the arm with the bearing fully screwed down if the arm is really parallel to the chassis. After this it was time to float the chassis again and adjust the springs until the platter was flush with the aluminum plates:

Ahhh...so beautiful! This is Beolove!

Beogram 4002 (5513): Adjusting the Floating Chassis Height

Once the main platter bearing is adjusted in a Beogram 4002 (5513), the floating chassis height needs to be set in a way that the aluminum surface of the platter is flush with the surrounding aluminum panels. This adjustment is done by turning the nuts that define the height of the leaf springs that keep the chassis suspended for vibration insulation. This is best done with a 8 mm hex wrench bit:

Simply turn it CW to lift the chassis or CCW to lower it. This needs to be done repeatedly for all three of the springs until the platter is flush with the aluminum panels all around. I recently made a video that shows this process on a Beogram 4000. The difference here is that the 4002/4004 models do not have a counter nut, i.e.one should put a dab of paint on the nuts to lock them in place once the adjustment is satisfactory. If the platter is not centered in the aluminum panel (do this with the belt in place) then the position of the chassis can be set by bending the threaded rods on which the nuts sit. This is a bit a dicey operation where some relatively brute force needs to be applied with high precision. Nothing for the faint of heart!

This shows the end result. The platter is fully flush and looks just gorgeous!:

Here another angle showing off the lovely restored keypad:

Aren't they beautiful, these babies?? This is Beolove!