[Leica] Help! Flaky M6 electrics

["Simon Pulman-Jones" <spulmanjones@lbs.ac.uk>]

With impeccable timing my less than one year old M6HM has chosen the moment
we arrive in Provence in the south of France on holiday to go all
temperamental and unreliable. The electrics are working intermittently -
sometimes the LEDs light when the shutter release is touched, sometimes they
don't. And when they do light, they sometimes stay on for the usual period,
and sometimes for only a couple of seconds. I've changed the batteries, so
that's not the problem.

I imagine that this is a well-known M6 problem - can anybody enlighten me?
I'm sure the only answer is a trip to Leica when I'm back in London, but
just in case - does anybody know of a simple do it yourself solution to this
glitch?

It's not the end of the world because I've got an M2 with me as well and am
hand-held metering anyway. I'm just interested to know why my German
high-precision instrument has decided to go all hot-headed and unreliable.

Otherwise, it's just another day in paradise down here, in a villa we found
for rent at the last moment and at a knockdown price. Though clean and well
tended it has the feeling that nobody has been here since it's heyday in the
early 1970's, when it must have been the last word in glamour. It's a huge
place, with the most extravagant 1970's decor - you half-expect to find Abba
having a party round the next corner, or for Tony Curtis and Roger Moore to
come crunching up the gravel driveway for an episode of the Persuaders.

So the dodgy M6 is nothing to cry over - I'd just be interested to know what
the story is.