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chris burck
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 12:43 am: | 
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ok, here i go again. . .
on to my next project: hi-matic 9 with frozen shutter. advance lever cocks and the shutter clicks, but the blades don't move. would this be another example of gummed up shutter mechanism? if so, i'll want to remove the top plate so i can pull out the rear lens group to avoid the chance of fluids migrating to the glass.
apart from the obvious screws and the advance lever, the rewind lever needs to come off and i can' tell how to do that.
also, any comments as to the nature of the shutter problem would be appreciated. i should point out that in the process of handling the camera i tripped what i had assumed was the flash sync, but now i'm wondering if it's not the self-timer. it's located at the upper 'corner' on the advance side. the shutter now seems it's not clicking, and the advance lever no longer advances. will this free up once the shutter is cleaned? or has a whole new problem been created? note that i didn't force anyhting; my hand or a finger must have simply brushed against it while the shutter was cocked (i had the bottom plate off so i could watch how the advance/cocking mechanism operated). |
Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 02:47 am: |
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Why do you want to remove the top plate? It won't give you access to the rear lens elements. On the Hi-Matic 9 you can only remove the rear lens elements after lifting the front assembly of the camera since it does not fit through the film screen.
It's been a while since I reassembled my (similar) Hi-Matic 7. But some of these older cameras have a kind of feedback from the shutter to the advance mechanism, the advance crank can only be moved if the shutter has opened and closed correctly. I don't think that the self timer is the problem, although I always warn people to try with the self timer when the shutter is gummed up.
Just remove the front lens assembly and drip some drops of lighter fluids on the blades. I am almost sure they will be free for a while, but for safe operation you will have to soak and wipe them pretty often. |
chris burck
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 04:55 am: |
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to pull the rear lens group, the front plate (with the lens on it) has to be removed because the retaining ring is not accessible through the film chamber. it also could use a cleaning in the viewfinder/rangefinder since it's a bit cloudy.
the shutter blades appear absolutely pristine, so i'm guessing that if there's any gummy lubricant it'll be in the gearing/clockwork of the shutter mechanism. i'd rather pull all the glass in that case since it may well entail rather larger volumes of solvent.
i've read about not setting the self-timer, and did here did it completely by accident. strangely, with further fiddling the self-timer clocked off and the shutter tripped.
i haven't observed the feedback to which you refer (that *was* the case with the racer, though). the camera was winding and shutter clicking, all as one would expect in a properly functoning camera (except for the fact that the shutter doesn't actually fire; there is a distinct click, but the blades don't move). and now that the self-timer ran, the wind lever again moves freely and the shutter clicks as well, though it still doesn't actually fire.
as far as i can tell, the top plate will come off if i can get the rewind lever out. if i fold out the lever, i can see a retaining ring underneath. around the shaft, but unscrewing it doesn't loosen the rewind shaft. after two or three revolutions the ring butts up against the rewind knob and can't unscrew any further. i just don't see how to get it out. |
Dan Mitchell
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 09:20 am: |
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To remove the rewind knob, you open the back, hold the rewind shaft in place and then just unscrew the knob.
The Hi-matic cameras are fairly complicated to disassemble. I would suggest following Winfried's advice. Remove the front element and controls to get access to the shutter for cleaning. |
Jon Goodman
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 09:28 am: |
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Hi, Chris. I'm having a little trouble following...have you unscrewed the rewind lever from its shaft yet? First you do this and there may be a retaining collar beneath that. Otherwise, a screw or two may hold this end of the top plate down. The rewind lever may be loosened by blocking the rewind fork with a piece of wood or a screwdriver and unscrewing the rewind lever, or some are held in place with a central screw (into the shaft) which is visible when the rewind handle is flipped up.
Jon |
chris burck
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 03:30 pm: |
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OMG you guys weren't kidding.
at first it looks like all you need to do is separate the lens from the body by removing the front plate. then you realize the cone comes out with it (which makes the removal more difficult) so you'll have to separate that. which is when you discover that to do that you'd have to get at a screw which is deep inside a hole, and judging by the size of which you'd virtually need a microinstrument to unscrew it.
and then. . .then you discover that while messing with the cone you've wiggled it out of place just enough to see that even if you had gotten the cone off, you'd still have to separate the lens from the helical to get at the rear glass!!! O_M_G!!!
it's positively baroque how complicated this camera's assembly is. their production costs must have been enormously excessive for a camera of this type.
ok, it's all going back together. one thing i am not sure of, is there's a spring related to the shutter firing linkage that came loose. it's attached to a part of the linkage which is mounted on the front plate (it's mated to an arm which extends upwards to the upper portion under the top plate and on the end of the arm there is a pin which fits into a curved slot). it looks as though this spring might hook onto a pin on the part of the shutter linkage that reaches down from the shutter button. is that the correct place to attach it, or have i got i wrong? |
Dan Mitchell
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 04:35 pm: |
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Actually, once you have the light cone off, you are almost there. That oval shaped thing over the rear lens is just a mask that is lifted off. It's usually stuck on with rotted light seal foam.
The light cone is also tricky. The flange on top and bottom are slightly different in width. So if you take it off, be sure you have it back in the right orientation. Otherwise the cone will jam and the focus won't go all the way back to infinity. (Yeah, been-there-done that...)
That frustrating little spring does indeed connect to the auto-exposure linkage. There is a metal cover plate on the release side of the front plate that comes off and allows you to reach in and pull the spring back onto its hook.
When putting the front plate back on be sure you have the pin on the auto-exposure lever back in place in the meter. |
chris burck
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, February 23, 2004 - 06:39 pm: |
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ok, that little window did seem interesting, and i half-wondered what it was supposed to allow you to access.
thanks for your explanation, it was very helpful. i'm beginning to see much better now how this all fits together. if only i had a better head for electronics. . .
i do see now how that mask can be removed from the rear lens group locking ring. maybe i'll go see if i can get a screwdriver small enough to get to that third screw holding the cone in place. it'd be nice to replace that foam, anyway. really really nasty.
the cone is very clearly dimpled to accept the two screws on the bottom and the single screw on the top, so hopefully there'll be no alignment problem.
that arm which reaches up to the top plate portion (this is what you refer to as the auto exposure lever?) and links with the viewfinder metering display, clearly it's supposed to have some travel, but it is quite immobile. is this due to lack of a battery, or might it have anything to do with the inactive shutter? |
chris burck
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 05:35 pm: |
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ok, well i took another look at the cone, and though i don't have a small enough screwdriver for that one screw, it turns out that that screw actually doesn't thread into the cone. it just tightens down onto it, so i was able to get the cone out, separate the front plate and remove the rear glass. ya-a-a-e-y-y-y!!
i've done two or three good flushes on the lens, and after 18 to 24 hrs the shutter starts to hang on the slow speeds. also, the shutter cocking action has begun to get kind of stiff and harsh.
my questions are, will i have to take apart the lens barrel to do a more direct and thorough flush/cleaning of the shutter? and will something have to be lubed to get a smoother shutter cocking action? |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 04, 2005 - 04:45 am: |
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Up to here I most attentively followed your discussion and thought, even I knew I was on my own from then on, I could do the rest of the repair on my Hi-Matic 9 myself. But I must admit I am stuck. The release lever does not move and through the rear element I can see scratches on the shutter leaves, maybe this is why the shutter fired and those leaves did not open/move. Please let me know how you successfully finished the operation, thanks in advance, W. |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 05, 2005 - 04:39 am: |
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No reply? Does that mean the repair ended in a mess? |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 05, 2005 - 04:37 pm: |
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Thanks for no reply. I should have known that I was on my own, so I decided to take out the front plate (four screws, as usual), took off the plastic dome (three maggot screws) incl. the plastic frame withn rounded edges, removed the rear element of the lens and then cleaned, cleaned, cleaned the shutter blades, as they showed heavy wear and scratches on their backsides. A lot of dirt came out, but finally the blades were free. Unfortunately the shutter could no longer be cocked, and there was a feeling of metal rubbing against metal the harder I tried. So I decided to take off its front cover (5 tiny crosshead screws) and the shutter speed control ring (mind the cocking "wheel" underneath, it is springloaded to return to zero position after the shutter fired, if it is not correctly installed, the shutter blades won't open) and after some playing around with the cocking device I noticed the reason for the failure of the whole device: the main spring and its housing, incl. the cocking shaft (similar to the German Prontor shutter) had to be slightly regreased (watchoil plus MOS2 grease). After the treatment the shutter works perfectly again.
Complete reassembly and insertion of a new wire (leaking mercury cell, the usual mess) will most probably pose no problems, but now (about midnight) ...
is the time for a cold drink! |
Kar Yan Mak (Admin)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 05, 2005 - 09:57 pm: |
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Werner, try posting your message separately in the Maintenance & Repair section. Older messages tends to get buried in the archives. |
WernerJB
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, February 06, 2005 - 02:56 pm: |
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I know, I was just kidding, and people do not want to be reminded of unsuccessful repair attempts in the past.
For those who use "keyword search" and try to follow my repair initiative, please note that slack in the wind mechanism (due to heavy wear or forceful use of previous owners who thought they could make the camera work that way) negatively affects the actuating of the shutter blades, NOT the function of the shutter clockwork; this can be corrected by slightly (!) bending the shutter mechanism's cocking parts (levers), then the whole gadget is fully operational again. |
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