[Leica] Gnorw daed era uoy, tlaW

[John Collier <jbcollier@home.com>]

We have two seemingly normal and well respected people going to the wall on
the proper way to adjust the vertical alignment on the improved/cheapened
viewfinder assembly. After carefully reading both of their posts, quite a
few of which I have saved in my repair file, it is still apparent they are
both right; and, both being silly.

Jim has correctly stated that the tool was designed to easily (relatively)
do the adjustment with the top plate on. His invoice description strongly
suggests that the tool was introduced while the M4-P was in production.

Walt has stated that the repair company he worked for, took the top plate
off to make the same adjustment. Top plate removal on a M camera is easy as
long as you have the right collet wrenches. Reading between the lines, Walt
worked at this repair facility in the early eighties.

So here goes nothing....

The improved/cheapened viewfinder vertical adjustment mechanism was
introduced with the M4-2 in 1978/9 (yes I know the official date was 1977
but they were pretty thin on the ground until much later) so it would seem
that the tool arrived after by quite a few years. The M4-P production ran
from 1980 to 1986 and all we can say is that the tool probably was made
available sometime during the M4-P's production life (otherwise they would
have mentioned the M4-2).

I work in the automotive repair trade and have had the pleasure of
practising my trade both from dealerships and independent repair facilities.
The dealerships have access to, and have to buy, many specialised tools that
usually help in the repair of their vehicles. Independents usually do not
have access to, or the resources to purchase many of the special tools.

Things I now know to be true:

The improved/cheapened viewfinder was originally not meant to have its
vertical alignment field adjusted.

Leica found that the adjustment was having to be made more often and this
was costing them money in warranty repair time and shipping costs.

Someone designed the tool to save time after the introduction of the M4-P.

Independent repair facilities may not have been able to purchase the special
tool or may have not been able to justify the expense as most of their
repair work would have been on older cameras and the tool costs $280US.
Independent repair people have always had to devise ways of doing repairs
that require special tools without those special tools.

So WHO is RIGHT?! They both are. So WHO is WRONG?! They both are!

John Collier