Nikon F3: Disassembly & Service, Part 2
Transcript
Check Exposure
I checked [the Nikon F3] on my machine and the exposures are fantastic now. So yeah, my real big problem was just a sticky, not sticky, but contaminated magnet. They get a bunch of junk on them and when they get a bunch of junk on them, they will not hold. So, this one was releasing right away. Usually, I see them intermittently but it’s working great. Just checked on my machine.
We’re going to go ahead and we’re going to service the rest of it and take care of the ASA. Let’s go ahead and take all this apart here.
Remove the speed dial
Alright so I always look on my speed dial. I want to look and see if there’s a set screw. This one doesn’t have one, but a lot of these have a set screw right here. You need to take the set screw off before you try to get this guy out of here.
Your rewind knob is going to come off. You put anything to block your fork from turning. That’s why I’m putting my tweezers in there. Go ahead and spin that. There’s a little indicator that tells you which way to rewind the film, but you go the opposite direction. As you go, [the dial will] come up.
This is the newer style; you’ve got the spacer —sorry, spring washer. You got a spacer and then the shaft will fall off the bottom because nothing is holding it in anymore.
Remove the e-ring, plate, and coil spring
You’ve got an e-ring. This e-ring here needs to come out next. You can get an e-ring remover, but these pliers work just as well. Pull them apart. The ring is off.
The plate needs to come off. I push down. I can usually get an edge on the other side. That plate’s off. That guy almost always looks ugly. I usually leave them alone or I replacement if I need to.
[Next remove the] big coil spring. Get the coil spring out of there before it goes anywhere. That keeps the rewind lockout. That’s the inner… I don’t know why they do it, but they have an inner shaft and then this outer tube and I don’t know why they do it, but they do it.
Remove the lock system
So the lock system needs to come out. It’s got a shoulder screw. To get that shoulder screw out, you’ve got to get in the right spot. That comes out. I’m going to have three wires to unsolder here in a second. Two more screws.
You’ve got a blue [wire], a white [wire], and in the middle, an orange [wire]. They all need to come out. Try not to burn the plastic around them. It’s not the easiest to get to, I know. (Come on. I really need to get a new tip on my soldering iron.)
Okay, once I get this [lock system out], I like to look and see how all these little serrations look. This one’s not bad, it’s got a little bend in one of them. Probably somewhere around 200, maybe 100. Sometimes you can bend it back it up. Yes — that one bent back nicely. If any of them are broken that needs to be replaced, which means you have to take this apart and —you know — get in there and replace it.
Remove the cover
Next the cover comes off. With on this one, it’s two screws. Some of them have an extra screw over here. You’ll have this screw, this screw, and this screw [gestures to the 3 spots]. [This is a] tiny guy [screw] here, and this comes up. It usually comes up much easier.
The ASA dial
If you need to clean the resistor, these resistors break from impact any impact to the top. This resistor is a glass resistor. It will break, will crack, cracks can almost look like this thing is perfect. But they can be broken. You’ll see that in the speeds dial; it will read, like 2000. If it reads 2000 all the time, no matter what you input, then it’s probably going to be a crack in here somewhere.
Check the resistors
Okay, so this is where people start running into troubles. You’ve got an e-ring here. You’ve got your wires all loose. There’s another speed stylus here — an ASA dial— here that’s held in with three screws. The third one was super loose. (I’m just wondering. I don’t think anybody’s been into this one.)
Now I use a small little screwdriver and what I’m doing on this one is just kind of sliding it down in here and that’s stopping this gear, this white gear, from swinging back really fast. I just slowed it down.
The wires that go into the little notch, pull those out. [Unsolder the] one wire here. What I like to do on this guy — always check this surface right here, which is your [electrical] ground. Always check that for oxidation. This one’s in really good shape, so I’m really happy with that, but these get oxidized something wicked, and people complain about a fibrillating meter, or plus/minus jumping around, auto jumping speeds. It’s this resistor — sorry, this ground contact right here.
Two common mistakes
Two big mistakes — when the amateur gets into this thing, there is a string linkage. The string linkage goes down through the front, hooks around another linkage, then comes up and around. You jump this one down here [when] you’re pulling the front, no matter what, you will never get it back on again. If you pull the one under here — and it’s really hard to see — you won’t be able to see with the camera I can barely see it. That is a pain in the butt, too. That’s extra work so don’t mess with it.
Okay so once you get this out, if you really want to keep yourself a little bit safe, take your f-stop ring and move it all the way here. What that did is now you don’t see the string wrapped around here.
You don’t have the looseness on this pulley and this pulley down here, and they’re not going to jump. When you get ready to put this back on, I’ll show you how to get this timed correctly.
Remove oxidation and deoxit
What I’m going to do — this is alcohol on a Q-tip. I do like Q-tips for this. Q-tips can add a little bit of friction and it’s usually just fine for getting off oxidation. I do that and then I’m coming back with this.
This here is a syringe it’s full of oil. It’s a red oil, and I put it on the contact. Not much; I mean those are just barely overall a drop. I’m going to rub it in; this is what’s called deoxit. This makes the contact much nicer and plus it has a little slickness so you’re not constantly wearing everything out.
This isn’t a bad resistor here (let me get this guy out of the way). I’m going to go ahead and deoxidize this. I’m not putting much [red oil on]. People get over enthusiastic with oil, excess oil has to go somewhere. It usually goes in places you don’t want it to go, so be very careful with oil.
Okay, that’s everything in front of the resistor — sorry, in front of the contact. Get this edge behind the contact too. Okay, it’s in pretty good shape — you know the body’s going to pull this. All this force here is what returns this system back here.
Remove the front for cleaning
Alright, let me do this really quick. I don’t normally do it on all CLAs because usually I don’t have to. Many people run into troubles with this. What I’m going to do is take the screen out first and put it out of the way.
I’m going to pull the front show people how to clean this. I see this go wrong so many times. These [screws] are just really loose! I can’t quite figure out what’s happened — some things look like it hasn’t been touched, but other things seem like there’s been someone messing with them.
Alright, so I’m going to pull the mount off. The mount is off; the springs are out. I find most of my problems are usually if someone’s been in and it’s not me, this spring is lost. This spring right here. Behind it is a pin; there’s my string linkage. So a pin and a spring.
Since we have them out, we clean all this dust and dirt out of it. Now this would be a big problem if it hadn’t turned it all the way over here. You could have this and all of the string wrapped and looped around these pulleys. This could be a problem.
I’m just trying to get this as clean [as possible]. It doesn’t have to be sparkling. I don’t use grease on it. You can if you want to, but grease just attracts dirt. Nikon never put any grease on it, so I tend not to.
Put everything back together
Wrap the string around in a way that does not bind. That sits down here, and I like to get the string like slightly loose to put it where it needs to be.
Alright — this guy here [the mount spring]. Everybody asks —hey, where does this cut out go? It’s going to go over here, like that. It’s just one of those things I’ve been going doing it forever. I know where the cutouts go. Pin first. Spring. This is the mount spring. (Oops, almost cut that in half; there you go.) Now it goes back on. Align the hole with the pin it goes down. I don’t know if I have this [camera] 100 percent yet, so put these [screws] on lightly.
What I want to do is come up here, spin this guy and as I’m spinning that I’m making sure my f-stop ring in the front moved. The f-stop ring is over here, so now I know I’m not binding anywhere. I can tighten this screw down. This one down and it’s smooth. Don’t tighten these until you make sure that system’s smooth. Otherwise, you’re going to break the string.
I have bought them off eBay. People try to fix them, and those strings have been broken. You break the spring, then you’re pull in the front, which I think I will on this camera anyways.
Solder the brown wire
Alright I’m not pretty much done. With that I’m going to go ahead and solder this — this brown wire — back up. Oh gosh, alright sorry about that. I’m going to have to do something about my soldering iron because this thing is just bad. It’s the tip. I love Hakkos, but this tip is shot. I think I need a new tip, because I don’t like putting too much heat to this. There is an insulator right there — it’s black and it’s an insulator. I’ve seen people melt this insulator and it really causes problems with the camera. Say the meter doesn’t work right. (I had one that’s doing something; I can’t remember what it was. Some person had gotten in there and just burn the whole insulator out.)
Reset the timing
Alright, so this timing here needs to move this all the way over. When you feel just a little bit it’s pulling it back, so you take this and I go all the way until it’s right there. You can’t move anymore. It’s going to be this little slot and I just drop it down in. This F-stop ring should move about a millimeter before everything else in there moves, and it’s doing it just fine. So that’s where it’s timed. Right on the money. That’s why I`ve always done it.
Okay so those are my two things that I normally do when I do a CLA.
Alright so what we do — you know the orange [wire] is going to go over here. I don’t know why they did this. The orange and the white [wires] are crossed. They’ve always crossed.
The front light
Another issue with these things — a big issue (I could have done it earlier but I`ll do it now.) — most people know that this little light in the front doesn’t like to light very well. It’s pretty much universal they don’t like the light. I’m just, but we will go ahead and take that apart and get that to light.