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Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 03:15 am: | 
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I recently received an Auto-S2 which was given up by a repair shop. The light meter did not work, but there seemed to be no other defects. The light meter even did not work with the test switches shorted and the galvanometer failed the continuity test. Fortunately I had kept a light meter unit from a junker and swapped it - works again.
But there were some other not so obvious defects. The sync switch was stuck in the M position and thus the self timer could not be set. And it was difficult to set the lens to oo - there seemed to be some binding inside the helicoid.
I tried to access the sync switch problem from the front, but the sync ring is hidden deeper inside the shutter (between the shutter bottom plate and the shutter blades). Finally I decided to separate the lens from the body, first to check the focussing problem and maybe the sync problem could be more obvious.
The focussing ring turned smoothly to any position with the lens off, and it finally turned out that there was a tiny screw tangling around between the rear lens flange and the flange of the focussing helicoid. Obviously this was hindering the lens from returning to the oo position. I did not find where this screw did come from and the shutter etc worked well without it if it ever had belonged to this camera - so I dropped it.
I found that the (still mostly hidden) sync ring had several cut outs to give access to some screw heads. One of the cut outs was just big enough to give room for the cylindric head of one of the screws which protruded through the cut out - no wonder it could not be moved. But how did this screw come there? I found that there was a similar cut out nearby giving access to a countersunk screw. This cut out was much larger than necessary - the ring would slide over the countersunk head.
I decided to remove the two screws - the sync ring was moving freely now. Now I just swapped the screws - and Bingo, the small cutout was moving over the countersunk screw now, and the larger one now passed around the cylindric head screw. Obviously someone had accidentally swapped both screws during a repair attempt and did not check the sync ring after reassembly. |
Kar Yan Mak (Admin)
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 10:52 am: |
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I'd like to share my story on the Kodak Retina Ia that a close friend/buddy gave me. The shutter button just didn't feel right and the advance lever won't advance. After opening the top cover and closely inspecting, I noticed the parts were not assembled correctly. A part that was supposed to go one place went to another random place, which highly affected the operation of the camera. Not just in one case but a couple.
It's obvious that someone worked on this camera just by looking at the screw heads, which looked like someone used a wrong pair of screwdriver. The right tools would go a long way, it's a one-time investment but it'll make your cameras look like it's never been worked on before. And please, when working on a not-so-familiar camera, document the placement of the parts. Help preserve classic cameras. |
rick oleson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, March 20, 2004 - 04:25 pm: |
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These problems can go both ways, though: I once got a Nikon F "Apollo" body for free because a repairman had accidentally put the shutter release button back in wrong. Didn't take 15 minutes to fix it.....
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Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, March 21, 2004 - 11:13 am: |
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Yes, I once bought a Yashica Electro35 M5 (a very simplified Electro35G) and found the only defect was a rotten battery wire. The seller told me that this item was returned by the Yashica service as "beyond repair"... |
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