I wanted to close the loop on this post for the benefit of future Beolab 8000 foam adventurers.
I decided to re-foam the speakers on the theory that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That was a good idea – while the main foam in the upper part of the chamber was in good condition, the foam lower in the chamber nearer to the electronics was rotting.
I was lucky that my speakers probably were not used very much during recent years when the foam rot was bad. This meant that my speakers were relatively easy to open and clean. My electronics were also in good condition.
***NOTE*** I have not seen this mentioned much in the foam replacement posts but people should be aware that there are relatively large capacitors on the amplifier board and the service manual notes that these capacitors can hold charge for weeks and should be discharged with a resistor — be aware of this and be careful handling the amplifier board.
Here are some pictures:
Speaker unit came off easily on my set.
I disconnected the drivers from their wire harness so that I could have access to the amplifier unit with a spudger.
Front plates out, foam stuck to amplifier board in top right corner:
Sealing tape removed:
New sealing tape and replacement foam installed:
Because my speakers had fortunately not suffered much foam damage, I did not fully disassemble the amplifier board for cleaning. Instead, I cut the pictured white zip tie so that I could separate the two half with all wires still installed and slipped the new foam into place:
I buttoned everything back up and was pleased that each speaker worked. Big thanks to those who have tackled this before and shared their experience.
I haven’t been into them far enough to really see if there are signs of previous work. The screw heads holding the drivers and front panel all are quite clean with no obvious signs of being unscrewed/rescrewed. The small portion of adhesive foam visible at the top junction of the front panel and the metal cabinet does not look like it has been recently replaced.