[Leica] To the abyss and back with an Alpa Reflex Prisma, my story of repair, and sleep

[vick.ko at sympatico.ca (vick.ko@sympatico.ca)]

To the abyss and  back with an Alpa Reflex Prisma, my story of repair, and 
sleepliness

A month ago, I bought a jammed Alpa Reflex Prisma off ebay.  It arrived last 
week, looking in just fine cosmetic condition, definitely far too nice to be 
relegated to the status of static display or the horrors of the parts bin.  
The glass was nice and unmarked, the shutter curtain condition was intact 
and supple, but the shutter and film wind was jammed.

I searched the web for information on repair, and posted some inquiries and 
got back some useful and encouraging information.  

Of course this story is all written after the fact.  The thoughts and fears 
before the operation of opening up an unknown camera are much different and 
intense than after the exercise, with questions such as "what screws are 
there under the leatherette, how many bizarre lockrings are there that need 
special tools, etc?  

Last Friday I took the basics off, like the lens mount and bottom plate.    
The bottom plate is a straight-forward removal, just removal of all the 
externally exposed screws.  This exposes the complete gear-train for the 
film advance and shutter mechanism.

The top deck is harder.  I looked under the leatherette, but no screws to be 
found.  Two cover plates are found with exposed scews around the film 
chambers, so out they come  Some of their screws are behind shafts, needing 
special contortions to loosen them off.  Now after the fact, I find that the 
film spool is removable, and there was a srew behind it.  Had I known that 
the spool was removable, a half hour could have been saved having to trick 
out a screw with a slender screwdriver and toothpicks.  

Removing the top deck also means removng the prism, which isn't too bad.  
All the screws for the prism are accessible,and this is the first place 
where I find a missing shaft.  This shaft would provide a more secure 
attachment of the front of the prism to the body.  On the positive side I 
find that the prism glass and focusing screen are in really good shape 
although a bit dusty.  Now removed from the body, the prism will bs really 
easy to clean.

The top now appears to be loose, and can now be slowly removed.  But as I 
begin to separate the front and top from the body, parts begin to fall out, 
namely then lens for the view finder and two parts of its lensmount.  This 
is where the cold sweat breaks out, not knowing where the parts come from, 
and what order they go back in.  

My strategy in these situations of parts dropping out is to consider what 
the original assembly and design team were thinking.  Neither teams would 
have had magicians.   Parts have to go back in by logical order, and must be 
able to be positioned without anti-gravity tweezers or the like.

The front faceplate and top deck ultimately come off as a single entity.  
The revolutionary aspect of the design is that the shutter dial does not 
rotate when it fires, despite that the shutter dial is on the wrong side of 
the camera.  Many cameras of that time did not have a non-rotating shuter 
dial.  Removing the top deck also exposes both the viewing finder and the 
rangefinder mechanism.   I can now see what needs to bs done to realign the 
RF.  It is a simple two-mirror rangefinder design, and the only lensed 
optical assembly is the viewfinder, not the rangefinder.  And the optical 
chambers for both the RF and VF are simply lined with black cloth tape for 
light suppression.

But still no clues as to why the jam exists. 

I pull on the curtains and deduce that the first curtain hs no tension but 
the second one does.  This is sounding like a very common Leica failure mode 
where a felt light baffle strip can get lodged in the shutter curtain and 
tape.   But the chambers holding the shutters rollers and spring rollers are 
still not accessible.  

So now Lius's email (from IDCC) on the camera holds the essential clue, in 
that there is a seperate body housing that is sealed to the main interior 
housing.  I go around looking for its seams and find them.  I also go 
looking for where the attachment screws are.   This is one major factor with 
classical cameras versus modern ones.  With classical cameras, I can be 
fairly certain that screws and fasterners are what holds the mechanisms and 
housings together, and not glue or welding/soldering.  Sealng compound are 
used for light sealing, not structural attachment.  Today, items are sealed 
or glued together, and are incapble of offering viable disassembly or 
reassembly.

I find most of the attachment screws for the inner and outer body, but also 
find that the entire RF mirror assembleis needs to be removed.  This I one 
area where I will admit that the orignating company had magicians.  I hate 
having to do optical alignments without the necessary optical equipment.  
But forging ahead, the mirror mounts and pivots are removed.

The outer shell is then slowly slid free of the body box, exposing the 
shutter rollers and spring rollers.  Here, I find that the shutter curtains 
are indeed intact, with only a minor tear on the takeup side, and the tapes 
are fine.  I also find the errant spring roller and have to remove it.  I 
slowly separate the shutter curtain from the spring roller, but now find 
that I have to remove one of the shutter timing gears.  

Gear removal is a another area of immense complexity; not so much the 
removal but the need to properly retime things after.  I mark all the gear 
locations and have to drive out a pin to remove the relevant gear.  Having 
removed the gear, the spring roller is extracted, and miracle of miracles, 
the spring is intact, and only popped loose of its mount.  Reinserting the 
spring is trivially easy, and the spring roller is cleaned up and 
reassembled, working again.

Now I merely need to reverse all the disassembly steps, and this is the evil 
that many repair books end at, i.e. "reassembly is simply the reverse of the 
disassembly steps.

To move along faster with this story, I reassemble the shutter, and the gear 
that I removed.  I can now fire the camera with some semblance of proper 
shutter action, and discover that the gear timing was the cause of the jam.  
But this is what took the next 6 hours, discovering that the gear timing is 
completely off.  I put it down to someone else had played with the gears, 
and didn't put them back properly.  Hours are spent late at night to 
determine the correct timing, but finally the correct alignment is found, 
using the cocked state of the shutter as the reference.  

Ultimately, I get the shutter entirely reassembled, but find that the fast 
speeds are adjusted properly but the slow speeds are completely off.  If 
adjustments are made to the slow speeds to bring them into specification, 
the fast speeds are entirely off.  this is a complete conundrum, as the two 
speeds are locked by the single gear train.  After numerous hours of study 
and adjustment, I final concede defeat and cheat.  I remove the bottom plate 
of a second virgin Alpa Reflex and examine its gear train, and one single 
gear is installed 90 degrees differently than what I have.  Moving the gear 
adjustment on the Prisma brings both speed ranges into spec.  Relief and 
celebration, and short nap follow.

The rest of the reassembly is pretty much a reverse of the disassembly 
steps.  The rangefinder realign is another cycle of trial and adjustment, 
including turning off the room lights and shining a flashlight into the 
optical train to see where the mirrors are actually pointing.

The missing shaft for the prism mount is fashioned from a sewing needle Holy 
cow is a sewing needle ever hard!   I'll never consider buying drill rod for 
shafts any more; sewing needles are far easier to find.

Ultimately, the shutter is working well within spec.  My 4-1/2 year old son 
can operate the shutter tester and has great fun cycling through all the 
shutter speeds for me.  The rangefinder is working "well enough".   The RF 
spot isn't quite centered, but to center it would involve another full 
disassembly of the body plates, something that can wait into the future.

And the camera now looks beautiful and I have the inner peace knowing that 
it works properly, is properly lubricated, and has now become a "keeper".  

Now, if I can only find a lens for it ... anyone out there with lenses from 
old Alpas that they don't want?

regards
...Vick