Beogram 4002 (5523): A New Arrival from Colorado - First Impressions

I recently received a Beogram 4002 (Type 5523) from Colorado for restoration. It arrived well-packaged in a Beolover issued double-box. This is how the deck looked like when I put it on my bench:

The hood is pretty scratched up, but it seems the hinges are still o.k, and most of the scratches are on the outside. This means it could be polished back to a decent state. I removed the hood and found nice aluminum surfaces and a keypad that only shows light use-traces (the coating of the touch areas is slightly shinier than the rest).

The plinth corners are near-pristine:

The next step was removing the aluminum plates. When I pulled the plinth forward for their release, it turned out that the metal frames that are glued to the plinth are coming loose (a frequent issue due to decaying contact cement):

I also found a single spring, which is from one of the hood-mounting bolts (these springs keep the bolts propped up for easy mounting of the hood):

After removal of the hinge bar in the back of the deck it turned out that the second spring seems missing. Luckily, there are suitable replacements available.

Below deck this Beogram appears mostly original without obvious traces of previous 'human interaction'. This is the best state for a restoration, since it makes it much less likely to run into unexpected problems.

I plugged the unit in and pressed start. The carriage started moving and the platter motor spun. The carriage stopped at the LP setdown point and the solenoid actuated for arm lowering. Then I pressed Start once more and the carriage traveled to the inner turnaround point, and then returned to its home position. All good signs!

In summary, this unit is a pretty good starting point for a restoration, which will return this Beogram to a like-new functional condition.

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

I recently received a Beogram 4002 (Type 5513) from Arizona for a complete functional restoration. The unit arrived without its hood. It came in a Beolover shipping container. An excellent approach for trouble-free shipping. 

This is the unit as extracted from the packaging:

A bit dirty, but overall not too bad, except for the completely worn keypad:

I hope we will soon be able to professionally restore these keypads. On the positive end of things, the plinth is in a pretty good condition. The corners are almost pristine:

I removed the aluminum plates and had a look below deck:

This unit looks mostly unadulterated, a perfect starting point for restorations. There are fragments of decayed transport lock bushings all over the place, nothing unexpected in this vintage:

As usual the plastic pulley on the carriage spindle is cracked and my customer said he glued it to the shaft (shudder!...;-). It will be interesting to remove it from the shaft for installing an aluminum replacement. The belt definitely also looks 'end of life':

I was told this unit did some traveling in an RV for a few years (that is what I call 'roughing it'!...;-). Maybe this is the reason that the floating chassis springs are pretty rusty:

This is nothing really worrisome, just looks a bit, well, rusty!...;-).

After this first inspection, I plugged it in and pressed START. The carriage sluggishly started moving and the arm found the LP setdown point and - nothing! No solenoid action. I pressed STOP and waited for the return of the carriage to its home position. Then I manually operated the arm lowering mechanism a few times and tried again. This time the solenoid acted. So it seems there are just the usual hardened lubricants at play, and a thorough cleaning and re-lubricating should do the trick. The DC platter motor made some noises while the above happened. This is also not unexpected. These motors usually have dry bearings and they need to be re-infused with oil before the deck can be used again.

In summary, this is a pretty decent starting point for a full restoration, and I expect this Beogram will soon play like-new, and hopefully also look like-new after installation of a refurbished keypad!

Beogram 4002 (5513): A New Arrival From West Virginia

I recently received a Beogram 4002 (5513) from West Virginia for a full restoration. The unit arrived in good condition in a Beolover-provided shipping container. I extracted it and had a first look:

The unit is in pretty good shape. There are no major blemishes on the hood and it seems the hinges are not cracked. I removed the hood:

The aluminum surfaces are also in decent shape. The keypad shows some light traces of wear. This will be stopped by installing the Beolover Commander remote control module, which allows controlling all functions of a Beogram without touching the keypad ever again.

The plinth is also pretty good. The front corners, which are often damaged are almost pristine:

Like most later 4002 and 4004s this unit has degraded transport lock bushings as is evident from fragments like this

that are distributed around the enclosure. I removed the aluminum panels and the back of the enclosure and had a look under the hood:

I immediately noticed the platter motor was installed in the wrong orientation. My customer had sent me the DC platter motor about a year ago and I was able to restore it, but I guess I failed giving precise enough instructions to re-install it...;-). 

I plugged the unit in and pressed Start. The carriage started moving, found the LP setdown point and the solenoid activated. These are all good signs!

So, in conclusion, I think this may be a straight forward restoration project.

Beogram 4000: A New Arrival from Germany En Route to California

I while ago I received a Beogram 4000 from Germany that was purchased by a customer in California. The task is to restore the unit and send it on to its new owner.

Unfortunately, the unit was not packaged properly, and the keypad plates came loose during shipping. This caused some minor damages to the plates themselves as well as some dings and scratches to other surfaces under the hood.

This shows the unit after extracting it from the packaging:

The aluminum surfaces are surprisingly o.k. considering the liberated keypad plates:

However there is a post glued to the main plate, which may have been used to mount a wet-play brush. We will need to see if this comes off without damage:

On the positive side the plinth is in pretty good condition with near-pristine corners up front:

The hood is in need of polishing, but does not seem to be cracked around the hinges, i.e. it could be polished back to a decent appearance.

The MMC mount is chipped. An often encountered issue with the 4000. It will need to be replaced with a reproduction mount:

After taking off the aluminum plates I found this:

The red position indicator is still o.k., which is great! They are often broken off or cracked:

As usual the plinth guidance washers are cracked:

Human creativity can be observed around the reservoir and motor capacitor section, where some units were replaced in a less-than-pretty way:

I also found the strobe light to be liberated from its mounting points on the bottom of the enclosure:

At this point I switched the unit over to 110V and plugged it in. Immediately, the AC platter motor started running and the strobe light came on:

Miraculously it survived transport despite being able to bang around inside the enclosure.

Other than these two signs of life, however, the deck did not respond to pressing any keys on the keypad. Also the scale and RPM trimmer illumination was completely off.

I checked the power rails and it turned out that the 6V rail was dead. 6V is used for controlling the functions of the deck via the hardwired control logic circuit inside the keypad cluster. Further investigation revealed that the reed relay that controls the non-AC motor 24V and 6V rails during startup only switched 24V, but not 6V. I jumpered the 6V relay and that brought back the control system. 

So far so good. It seems this deck is a decent starting point for a restoration.

Beogram 4004 (5526): A New Arrival from Southern Florida

A while ago I received a Beogram 4004 (5526) from a customer in Southern Florida. The unit was hand delivered. I extracted it from the packing peanuts (not my favorite packing material!...;-) and had a look. This post gives a first assessment of this Beogram before I will go about restoring it.

Once I had it out of the packaging,

it immediately became clear that the hood hinges are cracked. One decided to give out when I opened the hood, and a piece of plastic dislocated:

Unfortunately, this is a frequent issue with Beogram 400x hoods. It happens due to the high stress in this area, while the plexiglass is weakened by the presence of holes for bolting on the hood hinge. I carefully removed the hood and had a look at the other side, and a fine hairline crack is already visible, there, too. So this hood needs to be fixed on both sides.

Under the hood I found an unsecured MMC 20EN cartridge. Miraculously, the cantilever was still present and appears not to be bent much. We will see if this cartridge still can be used for playing records after this ordeal.

Other than the hood, this Beogram is in a pretty nice cosmetic condition. The aluminum panels are fairly pristine

and even the keypad only shows minor use patterns:

Unfortunately, the clear coat on these keypads does not like much being in contact with the acids and fats present on human skin, and so wear patterns occur depending on how much the deck has been used. On this Beogram they are only visible under certain light and view angles, so that is pretty good!

The plinth is also quite nice. The corners are almost pristine on both sides:

A look under the panels revealed that this Beogram seems to be unmodified and in its original condition (original condition is the best starting point for restorations):

After this inspection I plugged the deck in and pressed START. It creakingly came alive and displayed a shrieking platter motor. It proceeded to move to the LP setdown point and activated the solenoid. All very good life signs, indicating that the restoration should be straight forward.

 

Beogram 4002 (5513): A New Arrival from Seattle en Route to Australia

A while ago I received a Beogram 4002 that was bought on US ebay by an Australian customer. He asked me to restore the unit before sending it on to him. This post gives a first impression of what I found in the box:

It was in pretty rough and dirty condition. It probably sat in a basement or attic for some time. Unfortunately, the hood was not protected during that period and some scratches accumulated on the aluminum trim with the B&O logo:

The hood itself was very dirty and also has many scratches:

The good news is that the damages on the inside seem limited and the hinges appear not to be cracked. This means it can probably be restored to a decent appearance. The aluminum trim could be exchanged with a replica strip.

Under the hood I fond this:

Sadly, the cartridge had been left on the arm and it lost its cantilever and Plexiglas protector. 

There is not much one can do except getting it rebuilt or buy a new one. On the positive side, the aluminum surfaces are in decent condition, 

but the keypad has a lot of damages from use:

The plinth is pretty good, with one corner perfect,

and the other with a minor chip:

Under the aluminum panels I found a decent situation. No obvious previous 'human interaction' which is usually a good starting point for a restoration:

One of the floating chassis springs is rusty, another indicator that this unit spent some time in a non-climatized environment:

After this visual inspection, I plugged it in and pressed start. The platter motor came on with a shriek, indicating a thirst for fresh oil for its dry Oilite bearings. The carriage started moving and stopped at the LP setdown point. All good signs, promising a possibly uneventful restoration of the functional components of this deck.