Beogram 4002 (5513): Floating Suspension, Reservoir Capacitor & Platter Motor

This project is heading into the home stretch now. In this post I am showing the remounting of the floating chassis in the cabinet along with changing out the reservoir capacitor and installing the rebuilt platter motor.

Here are the components for mounting the floating suspension back in the cabinet.

The longer end of the threaded pin goes on the bottom. It is important to attach the wing-nut so that it is right at the start of the thread. I attach mine so there is enough thread in place to hold the nut and the outer part of the nut is flush with the top most thread. The idea here is to provide maximum space for the floating chassis when the the lock is disengaged. Turning the threaded pin will move the two lock nuts closer together (locking the suspension) or further apart (unlocking the suspension).

Because most of the Beogram 400x turntables have deteriorated transport lock bushings Beolover created replacements using 3D printing technology. Here are a set of the Beolover transport lock bushings for the three Beogram suspension mounts. There are a total of six 3D printed parts.

Now the rest of the suspension mount pieces can be attached. Just like the first wing-nut I started out with the top of the nut flush with the first thread.

The next re-installation in the cabinet is the reservoir capacitor.  The original reservoir capacitor is actually two in one. Not all Beogram 400x turntables have this same type of reservoir capacitor so make sure you check carefully and identify what your 400x type has.

I removed the wires and installed the Beolover replacement capacitor assembly.

It looks great. Now to install the platter motor that Beolover rebuilt for this project.

One more look over the reassembly so far shows everything looking good.

The next step is to work on the main board and the output board.

Beogram 4002: New Project From Houston

I get to switch gears from Beomaster restorations back to a Beogram project next. I love working on both so either way it is a treat for me. A gentleman from Houston brought me a couple of Beogram 4002 Type 5513 turntables he had acquired some years ago. Eventually they began to age and stop functioning correctly.  Like most Beogram 4002 owners he found that he missed playing vinyl records on them so he had to get them restored.  I am lucky enough to receive the task and look forward to getting these back 100% working again.

One at a time though.

These were functioning well for the owner not too long ago so the Beograms are in decent shape. Here is the first Beogram turntable opened up.

I already removed the DC platter motors back in March and sent them to Beolover for a full restoration. I have those motors back and they have been waiting for the rest of the Beogram restoration to catch up.

There are a few areas inside this Beogram where rust is starting to look bad. I will clean those up and put a stop to the rust. 

The Beogram phono DIN plug is badly corroded as well and the best solution there is to replace it.

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the chassis components that have rust.

Interestingly this Beogram 4002 is one of the rare few I have seen where the plastic transport bushings around the floating suspension locking screw are still intact. They are still soft and in good shape. Most of the units I see have brittle bushings that have cracked and are in a million little pieces scattered throughout the Beogram. I will treat the bushings with some plastic restoration fluid that will keep them from drying out.

The main circuit board looks in great shape. No signs of heat stress or corrosion there.

The tangential arm assembly also looks to be in good condition. 

Recapping the main board, replacing relays and speed trimmers along with cleaning and adjusting the tonearm mechanics should get this turntable back to working the way it was designed. The restored platter motor along with the replacement of the trimmers and speed indicator lamps (with Beolover's LED replacement modules) will have this Beogram spinning vinyl better than ever.

Time to get to work.

Beogram 4004 Type 5526: Starting the Re-assembly

Re-assembly time for these Beogram 4004 components. It is time to get the floating chassis put back together. The first pieces are the transport lock assemblies.

Set the lower lock at the very end of the threaded screw. Later, the upper lock will be set to the top end of the threaded screw. That is so there will be the maximum gap for the floating chassis to operate when the turntable is unlocked.

Three washers go between the lower lock and the Beogram chassis. The washers are concave so the washer arrangement is as shown below.

The Beogram floating chassis with its components fit over the transport lock screws. New Beolover 3D printed bushings have been installed to replace the original ones that had disintegrated into a million pieces (that keep showing up).

The top lock threads into place followed by two more of the concave washers. Again, the top lock is threaded so it is just on the top part of the locking screw.

The top plate goes on next. It is secured by two screws. It is important to note that the two screws should easily screw into place. No extra force needs to be applied. If you find they don't screw in easily then do not force them. It means the screws are not aligned correctly. Re-adjust them until they easily screw into place.

The locks are in place so the leaf springs are attached and the floating chassis is back in business.

I installed the Beolover rebuilt (re-infused bearings) DC platter motor and the two circuit boards. It is just about ready to apply some power and start making electrical adjustments with the trimmers I installed earlier.

Beogram 4002 Type 5513: Progress Update

The next restoration steps required removing components from the Beogram chassis since I have to remove the floating chassis assembly to get to tangential arm related work. I also really need to vacuum out all of those disintegrated transport bushings.

I found little pieces of the original bushings everywhere. Even inside the tonearm cover.

Here is the Beogram chassis finally clean.

Next I installed the Beolover 3D printed replacement bushings.

They fit perfect. It is important when reattaching the floating chassis lock down bolts to make sure the top and bottom locking washer pieces are at the same point of their respective threads. That is so their gap with the bushings are the same on the top and the bottom as the lock down screw is tightened or loosened.

As I continued the restoration work I removed the tangential arm assembly drive screw. You can see there was a lot of excess oil and I discovered the drive pulley didn't have a set screw. It looked like glue was used to secure it.

After removing the drive components and cleaning off oil I also discovered the drive screw bearing housing had a crack in it. The plastic had been stressed and become brittle.

Fortunately I have a spare.

This picture shows better the drive pulley missing set screw.

I marked the drive screw mounting bracket position and removed it so I could continue cleaning up oil and replace the drive pulley.

For the replacement drive pulley I use Nick's aluminum machined pulleys. They work great and look better than the original plastic pulleys. No chance of these metal pulleys cracking either.

That also solved the missing set screw problem as Nick's pulleys come with their own set screw.

There is still work on the tonearm assembly to do before I can start reassembling any of these drive components. Another task on the list was to change out the fixed arm detector lamp that detects if a vinyl record is present. To do that the end cap of the fixed arm must be pulled out to get to the original lamp.

This is fairly easy but obviously the tonearm assembly must be removed to do this. I un-soldered and removed the original lamp. Here are the disassembled parts alongside the Beolover replacement part.

Here is what I think is really nice about this replacement lamp assembly. Its shape is such that it fits into the mounting shell exactly as it needs to in order for the LED to be in proper position for the detector to do its job.

Another tangential arm component I am replacing is the tracking sensor lamp assembly. All during these tonearm related tasks I was constantly sopping up excess oil which it turned out was just about everywhere in and around the tonearm components.

I lost track of how many Q-Tips and Kimwipes I used.

Interestingly, when the tonearm assembly board that supplies power to the tracking sensor assembly was unbolted one of the tracking sensor leads popped loose from the solder pad. It must have barely been hanging on for a long time.  You can also spot another small, yellow piece of debris from the transport bushings in the picture. Its amazing that I keep finding them.

I de-soldered the two leads for the original tracking sensor lamp housing and removed it .

Here is the Beolover replacement part installed in place of the original one.

Note that I haven't soldered the leads of the new sensor lamp assembly yet. I will wait until I get the tangential arm put back together before I solder in the leads on the new lamp assembly housing.