Well, I wasn't looking for another Beogram, especially after the recently acquired 4004. But this one sorta fell in my lap, and I couldn't resist. I brought it home from Portland yesterday and immediately started poking around. It has the typical stiff cueing lever syndrome from old lube. The "Start" button has a bit of wear, and the dustcover has what looked to be minor heat damage from a candle being placed on it. This unit has hard, brittle plastic bushings to hold the wood sides in place and these were completely deteriorated. Otherwise it is in really nice condition and it was evident when I opened it up that I probably was the first to do so. Every adjustable screw still had its painted seal intact, and there were no signs of any work ever being done, except for maybe the belts which seem to be in too good conditon to be original. The MMC20EN cartridge is in wonderful condition (as much as can be determined by viewing under 80X magnification and listening).
After freeing up the cueing mechanism, I started her up, and was pleasantly surprised that everything seems to be in order and fully functional. There are more adjustments and repairs that will need to be done, but the prognosis is very good. I find it very interesting how many differences there are between units. This is the fourth 4002/4 that I have worked on and each one has small variations (and some not so small). It is also interesting how much hand assembly was involved with these units. I am curious to know if these units were bench assembled by a single person or small team, or if they were put together on an assembly line. There are so many individually adjustable components that it seems to preclude an assembly line process. But however they are assembled, these turntables are quite amazing.
Kevin