Beogram 8002: A New Arrival From Massachusetts - First Impressions

A customer from Massachusetts sent me his Beogram 8002 for a full functional restoration. It came well packaged in a Beolover shipping container and there was no shipping damage. This shows the unit on my bench after I unpacked it:

It is in pretty nice cosmetic condition. The hood has only minor scuffs. The aluminum surfaces are also pretty good:

The platter is nearly pristine. The veneer is very nice, too. The front corners are sharp:

I opened it up:

It is good leaning the top part against a wall or shelf since it can easily tip over to unhappy effect. I extracted all the functional parts from the enclosure and put them on my bench, a 'service position' of sorts:

As promised by my customer, after plugging it in nothing happened. No red dot in the display and no response to pressing any of the buttons. Based on previous experiences, it might just be a bad capacitor in the power supply or a cracked solder joint on the header that hooks up the transformer brick. Stay tuned for a full report on this restoration project.

Beogram 8002: A New Arrival from California - First Look

I recently received a Beogram 8002 for a full restoration from a customer in California. It was shipped in a Beolover double box shipping container and it arrived without shipping damages. This shows the unit after I extracted it from the box:

A few parts were packaged separately, indicating previous repair attempts.

The hood is fairly scratched:

The platter, aluminum panels and veneer panels are in pretty decent condition:

I opened the unit up:

The 8002 flips open like a book. It is a good idea to flip the top against a vertical support. I extracted the vital parts and put them on my bench:

After reconnecting everything I plugged the transformer in and the LED dot came on in the display. I pressed PLAY and the carriage went to search for a record. STOP returned the carriage home.

All good signs! Stay tuned for the restoration report.

Beogram 400x: 3D Printed Arm Support for Shipping

I got finally tired of using foam and tape to support the arms of Beogram 400x during shipping. A while ago I received a Beogram for restoration that came packaged with the original B&O arms support made from rubber. Believe it or not: I forgot to take a picture of it! But I copied the design for 3D printing at a later point and then I forgot about it.

Recently, I came across the design and decided to print it with flexible TPU filament. It worked very well:

This is how it installs:

Simply bend the U-cradle a bit apart and slide it under the arms. Then press them gently into the U-shape Done!

No more tape on the arms! This part will become a standard feature of the Beolover shipping container! Beolovely!

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.