Crown Graphic is Jammed!

bvy · May 18, 2016

What have I done? My Crown Graphic is stuck. I started to collapse the camera while the camera was in a focused position. I didn't force it; I just released the struts on either side when I realized it. Now the focusing knob won't budge (doesn't move the front standard along the bed), and the locking lever is tight too. I don't want to force anything. Help?

Ian Grant · May 18, 2016

You've possibly damaged the rear rail guides inside the camera, or the end of the guides on the main focus bed. You'll need to look carefully.

I had to replace the inner rails on this camera,

Ian

removed account4 · May 18, 2016

can you turn the knob and release the front standard from the bed ? you can pull it all the way forward
and as long as your infinity stops aren't "up" you can remove the front standard. that way you can have a look
at what is going on.

Sirius Glass · May 18, 2016

Start by releasing the locking lever and thing should start to move.

bvy · May 19, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
Start by releasing the locking lever and thing should start to move.

As mentioned, it is also stuck.

I was able to move the front standard further along the bed so I could get a closer look at what's going on. I'll play with it some more later...

removed account4 · May 19, 2016

hi bvy:

if / when you can remove the front standard from the track you will be able to see
if the linkage is jammed. i have a feeling it is jammed. you might depress the struts to DROP the bed, it might help FREE the jammed "stuff".
( by removing the pressure that is against it ) if you have to, you can take a small screwdriver
and remove the portion of the railtrack ian refered to ( that is in the camera box ). when i couldn't find that specific part
to replace on mine, i flipped it, so the front/damaged part was in the back and the undamaged part was in the front
and it worked good as new. i think someone sells that part on ebay nowadays so you won't have to do the flip, unless you want to go that route.

rjbuzzclick · May 19, 2016

jnanian said:
if you have to, you can take a small screwdriver
and remove the portion of the railtrack ian refered to ( that is in the camera box ). when i couldn't find that specific part
to replace on mine, i flipped it, so the front/damaged part was in the back and the undamaged part was in the front
and it worked good as new.

I did this as well on a CG I restored. If you need to re-shim the guides (since they'll need to switch sides), thin aluminum, even from a pop/beer can, works well.

Ian Grant · May 19, 2016

Unfortunately you can't get at the screws for the inner guides rails with the camera as it is, You've most likely just gut the linkages between the front and rear track jammed awkwardly unless you used a lot of force it's probable you haven't damaged the guides..

Some how you need to look at the linkages, it may be a good idea to remove the front standard if you can. It's easy to remove the bellows from the standard, just unscrew the 2 screw bolts that hold the lens board sliders in place, don't lose any parts

My guess is you need to tap the rear part of the rails to free the linkages, but you'll need to be careful. If you look at my photo you'll see the rear track is sitting over the end of the front part because I deliberately closed it with out fully retracting the focus rail to show what happens.

Possibly a better approach is with the standard removed looses the long guides either side of the main part of the track then it should be easy to get back into place.

Ian.

shutterfinger · May 19, 2016

Fold down the infinity stops and slide the front standard off the front of the rails (yoke). Position the front standard/bellows in the body. Remove the bed guide item 1 on the left side and loosen the guide screws on the right. The rails have to be removed to unscrew the focus lock lever. With the right guide removed and the left loosened you should be able to unjam the rails. The bellows have to be removed to access the body guides which may be bent or broken.
Full side rangefinder version service manual. Body repairs are the same for a top rangefinder version. http://www.graflex.org/manuals/45-Pacemaker-Speed-and-Crown-Graphic.pdf

bvy · May 20, 2016

Thanks everyone. With some maneuvering, I managed to free things up. What I'm seeing inside the case, are the shims underneath the yoke guides are coming out especially on one side (part names as described in the linked to manual). They're not broken and actually the focusing knob moves the bed into and out of the case freely, but it's something I'd like to fix.

Otherwise, I don't hear anything rattling or see anything wobbling, so maybe it's not fatal.

shutterfinger · May 20, 2016

bvy said:
With some maneuvering, I managed to free things up

Darn, you don't have to send it to me after all.
There are two styles of bed guides, the early ones you have and shown in the manual and the later ones that use set screws in place of the shims to adjust the height.
To put the shims back in place loosen the guide attach screws 1/2 to 1 turn, slide the shims back in place, then tighten the screws. The shims sometimes try to slide out when tightening the screws. With the correct pressure angle they may slide back in.

focus_on_infinity · Sep 21, 2020

I recently discovered the drop bed function, and immediately proceded to jam up my camera so that I couldn't get the lens back in the body. I was sure I hadn't bent, forced, or broken anything, but I couldn't get the lens back in. I looked carefully, and the linkages all looked good, and nothing looked broken or bent.

What I discovered was that when extending the bellows, I had pulled the inner rails straight out of their guides. After a little careful seating on both sides, and I was able to get them to slide back in. After that, everything went right back in, and afterwards worked exactly as it should.

Not really intending to necropost here, but some Crown Graphic owner might run into the same situation, in which case, they should check this.

Sirius Glass · Sep 21, 2020

focus_on_infinity said:
I recently discovered the drop bed function, and immediately proceded to jam up my camera so that I couldn't get the lens back in the body. I was sure I hadn't bent, forced, or broken anything, but I couldn't get the lens back in. I looked carefully, and the linkages all looked good, and nothing looked broken or bent.

What I discovered was that when extending the bellows, I had pulled the inner rails straight out of their guides. After a little careful seating on both sides, and I was able to get them to slide back in. After that, everything went right back in, and afterwards worked exactly as it should.

Not really intending to necropost here, but some Crown Graphic owner might run into the same situation, in which case, they should check this.

Such actions are not good for ones blood pressure nor helpful for the heart. User beware!

focus_on_infinity · Sep 21, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
Such actions are not good for ones blood pressure nor helpful for the heart. User beware!

Yeah, I think I said a few words that I normally reserve for the cat.

MattKing · Sep 21, 2020

focus_on_infinity said:
Yeah, I think I said a few words that I normally reserve for the cat.

Did the camera respond with the same indifference as the cat does?

focus_on_infinity · Sep 21, 2020

MattKing said:
Did the camera respond with the same indifference as the cat does?

They're both pretty cooperative, but I don't really think either understands me.

specialmonkey · Sep 1, 2023

focus_on_infinity said:
I recently discovered the drop bed function, and immediately proceded to jam up my camera so that I couldn't get the lens back in the body. I was sure I hadn't bent, forced, or broken anything, but I couldn't get the lens back in. I looked carefully, and the linkages all looked good, and nothing looked broken or bent.

What I discovered was that when extending the bellows, I had pulled the inner rails straight out of their guides. After a little careful seating on both sides, and I was able to get them to slide back in. After that, everything went right back in, and afterwards worked exactly as it should.

Not really intending to necropost here, but some Crown Graphic owner might run into the same situation, in which case, they should check this.

Something similar is happening to me on my Crown Graphic. I was trying to see if my rangefinder was accurate and for whatever reason had the bellows extended far and I dropped the bed, the rail linkages became stuck. And that's when I probably messed things up trying to get things back to normal.

In any event it looks like I toasted my rear rail yoke guides? It seems some of the metal has slivered off and is now just hanging.

I still seem to be able to use the camera if I'm careful not to extend the bellows too far - otherwise things get stuck and maybe are allowed to extend beyond where they once did? I'm not really sure. Other than keeping the rear inside rails held down, what else do these rear rail yoke guides do?

Thanks for any advice!

P.S. I found the following:

https://lommen9.home.xs4all.nl/broken rear guides/index.html

and think I can flip these guides but probably would like to get some new ones.

I wasn't able to remove the shutter actuator from the front standard - the thumb wheel doesn't seem to move very much at all in either direction maybe only 1 to 2 mm in either direction before it's tight again - the site above mentions perhaps a retaining ring rivet type thing but I don't see it. I don't think it's necessary to remove this from the front standard though to get at the the yoke guides, I didn't need to anyway. The bellows removal from inside the back isn't something I want to do so much again - so maybe I'll just replace these instead of reversing them. One thing the site mentioned about removing the bellows that I didn't see was 2 retaining clips. I only saw the 8 corner folded metal tabs.

Crown Graphic is Jammed!

bvy

Ian Grant

removed account4

Sirius Glass

bvy

removed account4

rjbuzzclick

Ian Grant

shutterfinger

bvy

shutterfinger

focus_on_infinity

Sirius Glass

focus_on_infinity

MattKing

Moderator

focus_on_infinity

specialmonkey

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