R4s Question

[Irishimage]

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I am now the proud owner of a 1983 'vintage' Leica R4s which i might add has seen better days and hope to restore it to at least good working order before the summer arrives.

Can anybody tell me where i can purchase a seal kit for the camera back or failing that where i could get suitable felt/foam material to do the job..

Appreciate any leads or help i can get ..

 

Noel

[doubice]

Noel,

 

There are many sellers on eBay, who specialize in supplying foam kits for older cameras. The most reliable one is a fellow by the name of Jon Goodman, his eBay ID is 'interslice'. You can find out about him here: Favorite Classics / Jon Goodman's Seal Replacement Instructions

 

His kits are first class, he offers instructions with them and will even help you via email should the need arise.

 

On the R4 you will not only need to replace the seals around to body, but also the one around the film window on the back door. These used to be available from Leica as well, but check with Jon Goodman first.

 

Good luck,

 

Jan

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[Guest flatfour]

Malcolm Taylor replaced the seals on my R4s - very reasonable and quick.

[telyt]

Lily Cotton Co.'s black crochet thread, affixed at each end with a tiny dab of rubber cement.

[leicamann]

Dougs suggestion should work, the replacement kits are still availible. Remember it might be better to send it to someone like Sherry Krauter or Don Goldberg at DAG camera to get a CLA done to it. I found my R4S to scratch the hell out of my film due to all kinds of "unseen dirt".

 

Good luck.

 

Regards, Leicamann

[stunsworth]

Noel, I'm guessing from your user ID that you're from Ireland. If so I'd add another recommendation for Malcolm Teylor in the UK. He did an excellent job on my M6 and also on a friend's IIIG. He loves Leica and I suspect he could talk all day on the subject.

 

His details are...

 

Malcolm Taylor

Upper Lye Farm

Aymestrey

Leominster

Herefordshire

HR6 9SZ

United Kingdom

Tel - +44 (0)1568 770542

[Irishimage]

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Well first of all thanks to all above .. Jan,Anthony,Doug,John &Steve for your response and also for your leads and information given.

 

Replacing the seals myself doesn't present any problem for me as iv restored many mechanical and electronic components over the years, in fact i would consider repairing the camera the easy part , finding and sourcing the spare parts the hard part .. in fact if anything i would consider it a labour of love just to work on a high quality and well made piece of equipment like the R4.

 

Im also working on the lens that came with the R4 ..

it's a Vario- Elmar -R f/3.5 35-70mm E60 .

 

The glass elements look in perfect condition with out any scratches but the overall feel of the lens was loose with lateral movement and a very loose focal length adjusting ring.

 

On opening up the lens body i soon discovered that somebody had done so before me and made a right mess of things, loose screws being the main problem, otherwise thankfully every thing was in place.

 

I have it stripped down to its component parts ,so if anyone is interested to see the inner workings let me know and i'll post up so photos.

 

Thanks again to all for your help ..

 

Noel

[earleygallery]

I had light seal problems with my R3. First it was the film window seal - Leica sent me a new one of those. Then a while later the door seals needed replacing. I bought a kit off Interslice (the kit is standard, you just cut the materials to size). It's worked fine and the camera is good as new. The material could also be cut to make a new window seal. Took me about an hour but be careful to clean off all the old gunk and make sure you don't get any debris in the camera/shutter.

[andybarton]

Stephens in Manchester sorted out all the light seals in my R4.

 

Top blokes.

[Lucklik]

I have replaced several lightseals in camera's.

As material I use a mousemat from which I cut a smal band.

Then peal off the plastic.

I don't use glue, exept for the window to look at the ISO of the film.

 

rgs

 

Luc