R4: Shutter Button Question & Disassembly Help

[karthikrr]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi,

Found this lovely forum while searching for info on a Leica R4 body described as having a "small problem". It belongs to a friend who gave me the option of buying it off him cheap, in its existing state, and trying to fix it and re-sell to a collector. I have been reading up on this and trying a few things and had a couple observations and questions that I am hoping the experts in this forum can help me with.

1) When I received it, I discovered that the shutter was not just firing with a delay, it was stuck and unusable. The film advance lever was stuck as well, indicating that the shutter probably froze midway through its cycle. The mirror was down, but the DOF preview lever was "loose". 

2) The battery LED would light, but there was no activity in the viewfinder, meaning no leds or anything at all. The camera seemed dead. New batteries did not change anything. 

3) After a fair bit of research, I found a thread (unsure where) that suggested "smacking" the camera bottom on a bed or similar soft surface. Somewhat frustrated, I did this, and it actually worked. The shutter finished its cycle and the film advance lever was working again, AND the viewfinder leds worked. I checked the meter and it seems fine too.

4) Advance the lever (no film), press the shutter, and same exact problem. But over many tests, I discovered that in B and 100, both mechanical modes, it would sometimes fire with a big delay, and other times get completely stuck. Smacking always releases the shutter.

5) Based on many threads in this forum, I believe this problem is typically related to dirty magnetic dampers. However, I find mixed information on how to reach the magnets. There was one thread that suggested it can be reached from the bottom plate and is easy, while another suggested it is behind the dof preview lever and complicated to reach, requiring some degree of disassembly. Unfortunately, I did not find information on WHAT disassembly is required.

6) In the meantime, I have also found that in all of the electronic modes (manual operation, but shutter speed electronic), the shutter button actually never fully depresses and therefore the shutter never fires at all. It feels like a half-press only in the electronic modes. In the mechanical mode, I can clearly see and feel the shutter go much deeper and actuate something. 

So my questions:

1) Is the shutter button behaving normally? Is there something else I am missing, as to why the shutter button won't fully depress in electronic mode, but works in mechanical mode?

2) If its the dampers, do I go from the bottom or the top? In any case, how do I get the top plate off and get any sort of serious disassembly done on this camera? I see one screw in the back, by the eye-piece control dial, and know that the top most screw on the mount holds the top plate down. But are those the only two screws? What else do I need to remove to get the top plate off? I am guessing the film rewind lever (on the left side, over the ISO dial) needs to come off, and the entire ISO dial mechanism probably needs to be lifted off too. What about on the right side, how do I get under the film advance lever and the shutter control?

3) Given the fact that the meter seems to work properly, I am guessing the electronics on this sample are okay (its a 156xxxx serial number). But just to be sure, if the electronics are toast, how do I know this? 

Any help/advice is appreciated, including an opinion on what price its worth buying at and then trying to fix it so I can keep it for myself, OR sell in working condition to a collector. A warning that it might be more valuable sold off to a collector in present condition than executing a botched repair and destroying its value completely is also taken in the right spirit. 

Thanks,

Karthik

PS - I literally went thru every single page of the English forum looking for answers. Now after posting, I see threads related to this in the German forum! Is there a way for me to search on the other language forums? Any pointers appreciated, but please understand that I did a pretty comprehensive search and processed what information I already found before making this thread

Edited August 11, 2020 by karthikrr
Added a note regarding other language forums

[karthikrr]

Maybe some pics will explain my question better?

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Here, in the mechanical 1/100 setting, the shutter button depresses fully, and the shutter fires, though there is a varying amount of delay between the shutter press and the actual release. I believe this is a dirty magnet. Main thing to note is that the button depresses fully, it goes in all the way.

 

 

In this case, when using the electronic settings, the button does not go in all the way. It feels no different from the shutter being pushed when the film advance lever has not been cocked. The depth is significantly less, and it feels like the button is being stopped by something. I am not even sure if this is an actual problem, or if the shutter button is only meant to go in that much and then the electronics are meant to take over? Not sure how to diagnose this. Any help is appreciated.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Lentakis]

Hello karthikrr,

I just received my second hand R4 (so I am also new to this forum as a NEW Leica owner) and although externally it is in excellent condition, it seems to have the same problem you describe.

I was wondering if you found a solution to your issue and if so, if you wouldn't mind sharing it?

 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Lentakis

[karthikrr]

On 9/2/2020 at 12:56 PM, Lentakis said:

Hello karthikrr,

I just received my second hand R4 (so I am also new to this forum as a NEW Leica owner) and although externally it is in excellent condition, it seems to have the same problem you describe.

I was wondering if you found a solution to your issue and if so, if you wouldn't mind sharing it?

 

Hi @Lentakis,

Nope, no solution yet. It seems this has been posted in the wrong forum, since I definitely saw some members talking about these issues in the past, but perhaps they have all moved on to other forums now :(

Anyway, for what its worth, perhaps you could describe your camera and problem in more detail and we could compare notes and see if there are any differences that will help us narrow down the issue. To start with, do you only have the stuck shutter problem, or do you also face the shutter button not depressing fully issue? Do you get the LED displays in the viewfinder and does metering work properly with the battery inserted? Lastly, when the shutter gets stuck, are you able to "knock" it loose by gently, well, knocking the camera on a pillow or some such thing?

I notice also that after I leave the camera alone for a day or two, I can always get 2-3 shutter releases before the shutter gets stuck again. This seems to imply to me that the sticky magnet issue is probably definitely one of my problems. But I am unable to address the fact that the shutter button does not want to depress fully in electronic modes. Since I have no working camera to compare with, I do not know if that is normal behaviour or not. If someone else reads this, it doesn't matter if you don't have an R4, could you check on your R camera and let me know how the shutter is supposed to behave?

Worst case, I am tempted to just sell it off as a defective body. I don't particularly feel inspired to try to open it up and poke around, I would rather make some money on it and buy something else that I can actually use!

 

[telyt]

This is how the shutter button is supposed to behave.  Except for the delay stuff, and needing to give it a good smack.

[wagner]

Morning! 

Guys, seems, you are mixing things up. There is no such thing like a "magnetic" damper. There is a mirror (shutter)  release magnet - behind the bottom plate - and there is the "mirror damper"- behind the aperture close down lever. When the magnet is sticky, there will be a problem with the electrical release, and when the "mirror damper" is not working correctly, there will be a shutter delay. All of this issues has often been discusted in this forum.  The release magnet is easy to reach, while cleaning the damper involves quite some dismantling.  

Sorry, haven't got time at the moment for more explanations. But again, there is lots of information about these matters in the forum.

Good luck,

Torsten

[Lentakis]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi guys!

Thank you all for your input. 

I'm going to search through the forum at Torsten's suggestion to see if I can come up with more technical information. A schematic would have been great but the Leica Camera Repair Handbook by Tomosy costs $375 on Amazon.

I'll search for more information and keep you posted how it goes if/when I perform the surgery.

Elias

[karthikrr]

Okay, after a LOOOOONG delay, I finally have some progress to report... I understood from this forum that the issue is almost certainly the "release magnet" because the problem was that the shutter would not actually fire, rather than the timings being off. But I was struggling to figure out which was the part that I needed to clean. I put away the camera because I didn't want to make it worse and life had other things that needed prioritising!

I picked it up again yesterday and this time figured out where the magnet was and tried to clean it with 99% ethanol (I only had 70% propanol and thought 99% ethanol is a better bet). The good news is that literally after the first dab, the shutter released and even the electronic shutter worked. The bad news is that it was super temporary and only lasted some 5 minutes before the problem came back and actually is now WORSE!

Now my new question - was using ethanol a bad idea? What other cleaner can I use? I have lighter fluid available, as well as turpentine (white spirit) and acetone. I am also struggling to "reach" all parts, since it is positioned very awkwardly. Any suggestions on the safest way to get this done?

What I am most relieved about is the fact that it seems the electronics are working alright on this camera. I just need to fix it before "smacking" it repeatedly destroys other working parts

[davidmknoble]

I cannot help with the release magnet, but the shutter button works as expected.  In the manual modes, the shutter must press the spring system to engage the manual release.  In the program modes, the shutter only makes contact with electrical systems.  This.would be like the difference in pressing an M3 shutter and an SL2 shutter, just all in the same camera.

Yes, unfortunately, smacking the camera to release it can move the mirror adjustment enough that the camera may lose its ability to focus properly.  CLA’s are hard to come by for the R’s, so I would see if the magnet issue can be resolved - if in fact that is the problem.  Best of luck there.

[Elias Kamaratos]

@kathikrr

Since I last wrote, I have moved on from the faulty R4.  I found an R7 which itself was in a sorry state but luckily I could scavenge many of the rusted/damaged parts from my R4.

Regarding your question about a cleaning fluid... In fact isopropanol is a better cleaning agen than ethanol or ethyl acetate if you can find it.  The shutter issue does seem to be with the electromagnet solenoid which may need some lubricant after cleaning.  A silicon based lubricant should do the trick but if you can't get that, try some WD40 sprayed with the fine dispensing tube. (Practice a bit on a napkin to find the right finger pressure on the nozzle)