camera repairs
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
I got my 35DC back. ¥4250 later, it seems to be ship-shape once again. In fact, the viewfinder looks a bit brighter than I recall, so perhaps they gave it a cleaning while they were adjusting the wonky rangefinder. I have come to suspect that the camera was somehow pulled down off of the table at some point, causing the problem where the rangefinder would no longer focus on infinity.
Somehow. I suspect that a certain father left the camera bag where it could be reached by small hands.
In fact, I'm nearly certain that this was the case, because I can clearly recall being surprised at finding the bag (with the rangefinder in it) lying on the floor of the living room.
While my XD11 was in the shop (not being fixed, as it turned out, because they wanted far too much money for it), I noticed that my replacement body (a "XD" variant model sold in Japan) wasn't right, either. In fact, the little window that tells you the current lens f/stop position was absent.
I did a bit of searching on ye olde Internet, and discovered something useful. First, I was right not to pay so much (¥20,000) for the repairs to the XD11: the problem is one of cleaning the resistors, something that technically-inclined owners are capable of doing themselves. I'm not that capable, but I strongly suspect that this camera just needs a "clean/repair/adjust" and doesn't need major surgery.
Then I noticed that the front of the pentaprism housing on the XD/XD-11 is removable. This is where the window down onto the lens's f/stop position is located, so I removed said cover. Right away, I noticed a small piece of glass wedged into one of the support widgets. Prising this out with some plastic tweasers, I found it to be a mirror. Easing off the cover on my XD-11, I found that the mirror belonged in a certain location, and that it should be easy to fix.
An hour later, I had it fixed. Not that it was easy, naturally. As with everything else I've ever taken apart, I had that horrible moment when a spring disengaged from its position while I was looking at something else. I've had this happen with a clock, a rifle, and various electronics. Now this. But in the end, a flashlight, loupe, four screwdrivers, the tweasers and a scraper with a curved tip all came into play and won the day.
Whew.
I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with myself. Now to get to the dishes which have been sitting for two and a half hours.