Had to pick between a CLA and a full teardown on a 35mm SLR

Ngl I had a Pentax K1000 come in last week with a sticky mirror and slow speeds. I went back and forth on just doing a basic CLA for $80 or going full teardown for $150. I did the full job and found old grease chunks in the shutter mechanism from the 1970s. Anyone else find that partial fixes just lead to another visit a month later?

2 comments

2 Comments

morganj8113d ago

Wait, old grease chunks from the seventies? That stuff gets rock hard and turns into cement. I've pulled out crusty old Lubriplate that looked like dried toothpaste from a Canon FTb before. Partial fixes are a trap on old Japanese cameras, you're right. If you don't get under the speed governor plate and scrape all that old gunk out, it's just going to come back.

brookethomas13d ago

600 bucks later and my repair bench now doubles as a dried toothpaste museum from all those Canon FTb finds. I swear I'm just funding an archeology dig for vintage Lubriplate at this point.