Beogram 5500 tonearm and speed issues

[max deems]

Howdy from texas beofans, I’m fixing up a beogram 5500 as a project and had a few questions as this is the first TT I’ve worked on (I do a lot more work on cassette machines). I opened it up and this is what I found:

-belt actually had a small tear which caused the turntable to wow
-tonearm lowers automatically but only drops the needle so much, kinda just floating above the record and giving a distorted output. I can get a crystal clear sound by raising the tracking force quite a bit (to ~1.8g, a lot for an mmc2) and tapping the tonearm so it goes down all the way and stays down with the extra weight

I bought a #2732062 replacement belt from west coast belts to start, which made the speed consistent though way faster (at both 33 and 45). There are motor speed trimpots inside, do I just need to mess with those or should I look elsewhere first? I’ve heard an over-tight belt would cause this, do I need a new one? And the tonearm, should it be lubricated or is something else off? Sorry for the million questions and THANKS in advance!

[pepps]

Hi Max Deems,

Schematics are available to gold Beoworld members. These carry details on how to adjust the tonearm, etc.

Could be worth your while if you plan to repair more B&O.

[max deems]

I did get the service manual, I’ll definitely use it for adjusting the tonearm. The language is pretty dense though, and I wanted to clarify about the belt tightness question before I started tweaking the trimpots

[Dillen]

A wrong belt can indeed mess things up. And it can even damage the delicate sinter bronze motor bearings.
It’s impossible to say if what they sell will work. I have seen countless wrong belts sold everywhere.
Correct belts are available from Danish Sound Parts – also the wedge-shaped one for the carriage motor.

Martin

• This reply was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by Dillen.

[max deems]

re: tonearm position, the service manual isn’t super clear what the top should measure from – is it the bottom of the metal chassis? If so it looks to be at 53mm already. Should I be looking at raising the platter height now? This is the wording that’s stumping me:

“Adjust with the screws L until the distance from the top plate to the topside of the turntable is 2.5-3mm as measured with the carrier pushed in the direction of the centre.”

2.5-3mm — got it. from where to where?

[pepps]

Hi Max, the way I interpreted this was If you were to look at the platter from the front elevation of the Beogram, the top of the platter would be proud of the top plate by 2.5mm to 3mm.

Hope that helps.

[Author]

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