Nikon FE2: Top Removal
Transcript
The issues:
We’re going to go ahead and take it apart. I really need to get into the shutter. I’ve checked it out. The speeds are actually pretty decent. I’m having a little problem with this guy here sticking against the really nasty shutter bumper. Pretty common for cameras this age, that bumper is deteriorated. You can see it’s all over the mirror itself. And then the back seals here — look at all that junk I got on my thumb — those are all shot.
To make these real reliable when I sell them, I like to clean the shutter. So today I’m going to lift the top, bottom, and I might even actually pull the front out, so thank you for joining me and I hope you enjoy this video.
Remove the bottom:
Go ahead and start to pop the bottom off first. Cameras tell you a lot of wonderful things. Sand collects, water collects down here. If there’s a lot of rust and you know it’s been in a bad environment. [There are] three screws, not two. Three screws out. Pull it [the bottom plate] out.
Check levers and winder:
On this one it looks pretty decent shape. Get the mask out of there. Pretty good shape. I like to test this little lever right here and make sure that guy is moving quick and snappy. It can hold you up a lot. This guy here — hold that back and it’ll just continually wind. Shutter won’t. Mirror box charges that can fall into place and blocks it.Check the battery cap:
Another big area check to see how things are going is — oh, squeaky battery cap — the battery, cap. Take the batteries out. That falls apart, but should stay together. You can see a bunch of corrosion right there in the middle. That’s going to need to be cleaned out. Those are going to have to be cleaned out, get that nice and shiny. I’ll show you a way to do that.Clean the battery cap:
So I just use a very light grinding compound; this is 1000 grit. I tend to put a dab in the middle, not too much. You don’t need a lot. Go around it, kind of work your Q-tip in there and you have a nice shiny cap. This is acetone to clean the rest of the grinding compound out. I got a nice clean battery cap now, no corrosion, all ready to go. Some people use pencil erasers. Just whatever works best. I found this grinding compound is fantastic.
Alright, so the bottom’s nothing too spectacular on the bottom. I like to check Nikon FEs, FMs, FE2s for broken battery compartments and this one looks like it’s in good shape.
I don’t have to replace it so let’s go ahead and pull the top.
Remove the top:
So to pull the top we’re going to need to get this leatherette off. No big deal, it just peels right up. Okay, and then I like to go ahead and take the cap off. Why not? I use these. These are round nose pliers, I have used my Dremel on them too, so they can fit into these holes much nicer.
I’m going to take that off, the spring underneath. See the spring is connected right there. You come up and kind of come around, (that slot is catching me) and the whole spring flies out. (Where’d it go? Oh, there it is.) Yeah nice, spring flew out. I think it’s been pretty chewed on, so someone’s bent the snot out of that one at one time.
Alright no big deal, we’ll go ahead and take these set screws out on the speeds dial. There are three of them. No particular order. It’s not hard to find out where it goes back in. Okay, that comes up, three set screws: one, two, three. Okay, if you need to know where you’re at, you just go to find B [Bulb].
Remove the rewind knob:
Go ahead, take the rewind knob. I use the tweezers, so you just put that in the fork. You go the opposite direction. That little arrow, it tells you to go that way. When you’re taking it off, go the opposite way. So pull that off, you got springs and spacers.
The knob comes off, then the spacer — so that’s the actual spring — the spring goes up, presses against the lever and I got a spacer, got a coil spring here. Make sure you get that out. It’s a pain when you lose it. Shaft will drop through and then there’s an inner shaft too. That’ll come through.
Nice E-ring. That’s why I have my pliers all ground. See these tips are ground specifically to do specific stuff. This will get in here, spread it [the E-ring}, then lift it up. Some people get the snap-ring pliers, I don’t care for them but to each his own. Go ahead and pry this up. It comes up. Get this with the spring, so this hold the rewind shaft and actually locks it into place and unlocks for the rewind. That comes up. The hole goes into the little post.
For getting that out, can use these [round-tipped pliers], put it in there and they’re cut thin so it will fit. The other side fits better. But I cut a junky screwdriver. — this thing is junky screw driver. These things, I can’t stand them. But it did serve its purpose. I ground it with the Dremel drill. Fits that screw absolutely perfect. You can see it like that, quick little turn. You screw it all out very quickly. Saves a lot of hassle getting that screw out.
These two small screws go. With all my screws, I put them there. (Get that one guy. Come on, there it is.) The spacer goes on top. Screw there, three screws down here. I’m not sure what that part is called. It comes out.
Pull off the top cover:
Alright, so pull that up, this one’s got a little bit of corrosion here and there. We’re going to get this — this is the multi-exposure lever — we’re going to get that out of the way. You don’t have to if it’s great, but I like to clean underneath them.
You can see there’s a lot of corrosion right through here. We’ll take care of that and pop this guy out too. There’s no reason really to pop that out and this is crap underneath it like that. So we’ll get this top cover before we put it all together all nice and clean, just showing little signs of corrosion.
Alright so that’s into it, I’d like to put my rewind knob back on that way if I need to charge and release it, it’s there, ready to go. [Where’s this guy going to go?]
Remove screws for the top cover:
Alright, screws for the top cover. One… I think there’s five of them, I can’t remember, they all go around the prism. Two in the front, longer screws go in here [the front of the viewfinder]. Short screw, short screw. Okay this one will be a long screw too. Don’t get them mixed up. Last one down here on the rewind.So that was top and bottom removal on a Nikon FE2. I appreciate you watching that; it’s not too difficult.
We’re going to go ahead and pull the front out of this too, but I’m going to go ahead and end the video here, so I won’t make it too long. We’ll come back [in the next video] and I will start to get the leatherettes off and we will pull the front.
Thank you for watching.
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