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 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.

Beogram 4004 (5526): A First Look

A while ago I received a Beogram 4004 (5526) from Pennsylvania for restoration. This unit arrived in the original box but double boxed:

I am not a fan of using the original boxes. The styrofoam is pretty hard, and I am worrying about the old brittle PCBs a bit etc...but this unit seems to have braced transport fairly well:

Under the hood I found this note pointing at a MMC 20CL cartridge that sat unprotected on the arm. A recipe for disaster! Especially with the arm unsupported.

Oh well, I had a look at the cantilever, and the tip was still on it. So there is a chance that it may actually have survived. But we will hear when I play the deck for the first time after the restoration. Anyway, I secured the precious thing in a Beolover MMC box:

The cosmetic condition of the unit is pretty decent. There are no significant damages in the aluminum surfaces.

Sadly there is a deep reaching strange 'spot' on the plexiglass cover, which seems unpolishable. It is very deep. I wonder what happened! But this means there may be a new cover from a donor in the future for this 4004. Too bad since the cover is otherwise in very good condition. Another one bit the dust.

The keypad has the typical damage on the START key where the clear coat has worn off:

Under the hood the condition seems pretty original. I was not able to see any obvious traces of previous 'human interaction' at this point:

After this inspection I plugged it in and pressed start. A screeching noise indicated a running DC platter motor with dry bearings. Nothing special at this age. The carriage started moving sluggishly towards the LP setdown point and upon reaching it the solenoid engaged. Good signs of life!

In summary, this seems to be a straight forward restoration project.

Beogram 4000: A New Arrival from New York

I recently received another Beogram 4000 for restoration. This one came from New York. It came in a Beolover double boxed shipping container and so shipping was no problem. I extracted the unit from its cocoon and put it on the bench:

The aluminum surfaces are in pretty good shape. There are a few small scratches on the platter but nothing too bad:

The plinth is also in excellent condition with very nice corners:

Unfortunately the hood is one of those that have a flimsy plastic imitation Beogram 4000 trim in the back. Also its hinge areas are cracked due to the high strain inflicted by the weight of the hood against the springs that hold it open:

Since all the parts of that cracked area are still present I may be able to patch it back together and put a new aluminum replica trim strip on this hood. If that works, all it needs is a good polishing to be back in service again. I took out the aluminum panels and found an original looking setup, an excellent starting point for any functional restoration:

Luckily, the hard to replace red position indicator is also in good shape:

Unfortunately, the mounting tab for the MMC cartridges has broken off. This is a frequent issue with the 4000 since they used a more stiff and therefore brittle plastic for this first iteration of the 400x series:

Even if the tab is still in good condition I usually recommend replacing it, since even moderate torque when sticking on or removing a cartridge can break it off, and sometimes the broken off part ends up lodged inside the cartridge, and then it can get really expensive.

Luckily, this issue can be fixed with a 3D printed Beolover replacement that is made from a modern material that does not break very easily.

A minor issue are the cracked plinth guidance washers:

They can easily be replaced with Beolover replica washers. 

What I also found during this first inspection was a cutoff mains plug. Not sure why quite a few Beograms come with their plugs cutoff, but here we go:

I did not dare plugging it in just now since my customer had informed me that there was some 'hot electronics smell' coming from the unit when he tried it out. So I will need to be a bit careful. I am sure the root cause will give rise to another interesting episode of my 'A fun evening with...' post series....;-).

In summary, I think this Beogram 4000 is a pretty good starting point for a full restoration to a like-new condition. More about this in some upcoming posts...