Well they're all done! I'm happy with the result. The recap has really made a difference in my opinion, cleaner and more detailed sound. I'm sure also the fresh le25's help (thanks again S.O.Stefansson) and thanks for everyone who gave advice.
The toughest part of the job was stripping back the cabinets, made worse by the fact that they had been repainted (badly) several times in their life. Next was achieving the paint texture, so I colour matched the original paint and got a spray gun. They gun was pretty cheapo, so i had to experiment to get the texture close to the original. It has a detachable nozzle, if you removed it the splatter was too big and messy or the splatters were round and pimply, with the nozzle on it was too fine. In the end I had to jam a screw into one of the two air jet holes of the nozzle which is off to the side of the paint outlet so the paint would hit the screw and disperse a bit. Anyway I'd probably invest in a better paint gun next time. Also I'd try to track down a harder wearing type of paint next time.
One thing I didn't do which I will do soon is apply some fresh speaker caulking to the cabinets, particularly under the woofers. Anyone was has removed a wooofer from one of these cabinets that has never been removed will know the joy of this process. The things get stuck in there, the old caulking seems to bond to the paint and you need to place a padded surface down and drop the speaker onto it to shock the bugger out of place. tough to do without damaging anything. So you're left with a non perfect flat seat on the cabinet where bits of chip board and paint have come off with the speaker, and the old caulking is no longer compliant.
Wiring up the crossover and doing the recap was ok. I used silver loaded solder for all the joints, this was a pain to work with. I had to have the soldering iron up very hotand managed to touch one of the new caps in the process and destroy it, this set me back a week or so as i needed to order a new one. Next time I'll order more caps than I need, caps are cheap shipping to Australia from US is not! Also I used thick copper speaker wire for the hook ups, don'd do this. The stuff is just too thick to bend around and get in there. One of the points on the crossover has lots of wires coming together and its a bit of a mess, I think next time I'd get a little row of screw terminals or something and do it neater. Also the mounting of the caps on the original board is not fun, I tried double sided table and cable ties, as well as silicone goop. Also I tried to think of a better way of mounting the crossover so I wouldn't need to detach the foilcal again if I wanted to experiment with different caps in the future, In the end I didn't change it. I guess you could drill out the threads on the board, epoxy the screws in place and use wing nuts from the inside or something. Anyway I'd really recommend the recap that I've done to any 4311 owners.
The fresh foilcal was pretty true to the original. If I'm being extremely pedantic I'd say the colour of the jbl logo was a little off compared to the original and the text a little pixelated if you're looking very very closely. But the mat black is spot on, having said all this, I would definitely buy them again. I do wonder if the foilcal will be able to be levered off without damage in the future with the 3m double-sided tape provided.
For the Binding posts I used decent quality, large silver plated ones, which have worked out pretty well. I think i may have mounted the red and black in the wrong position in the cabinet, but they are correctly wired up and consistent for both cabinets.
I opted not to restore the grills. I may just buy some new grills in the future. But I wouldn't use them anyway and I prefer the look without the velcro tabs attached when the grills are off.
I also built some mass loaded speaker stands. They are 16mm thick mdf boards with spikes, and are filled with sand. This also makes a big difference in my opinion, particularly with bass response. I've opted to go a little tall with them (stands are 56cm/22 inches tall including spikes). If you've got you're 4311s sitting on a pile of books or something, you should get some solid stands made up or buy em
That's my Sansui au10000 integrated amp driving them which is a nice combo I think.
Anyway enjoy the pics, if anyone else is going to do a restoration like this feel free to ask me for advice.
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