Thanks to Marshall directing me to the monster thread on field coil speakers on the DIYaudio forum, we may just have an option to "roll your own" 802 field coil drivers.
Here is the thread: Project Ryu - DIY Field Coil Loudspeaker - diyAudio
I spent many hours reading through this thread and came to the conclusion that although capable of the machine work necessary I was not capable of designing the electromagnet motor. So I posted a question to Hentai about possibly helping some Altec fans out with some design work and he said he would be happy to help. He is currently doing research on any conversions that he can find. He will need measurements I'm sure of the stock pot with the magnet removed.
I have two 808's, one has the cast pot and the other is a machined pot. The pot on the cast unit is about 3/16 of an inch longer. Cast pot is black with a 808-8A sticker on it, machined pot is green with a damaged sticker, 80? , last digit obscured. I assume it's an 808 as it's a good 3/8 longer in the pot than my 806's from my speakers. Can someone just verify this for me?
So if anyone has pics of both the cast pot and the machined pot without the magnet installed it would be a big help. Also anything on converted Altec drivers, actually anything on Altec field coil drivers, I want to load him up with as much documentation as I can.
This is very exciting, if you look through the post linked above you can see that this man is someone who would have been right at home in the WE labs in the early days. Today he has much more powerful tools at his disposal and is a dedicated field coil enthusiast.
I do believe we have been presented with quite an opportunity, let's do what we can to move this forward.

BillWojo