God save my F3

Richard Pippin · May 10, 2021

After many years of great service my poor old, well used, brassed F3 will no longer advance the film. Just finished shooting a roll and went to reload, but can't get the advance lever to move. Something is stuck and I'm at a loss as to why or how to fix. This could be something simple for this old brain to work out, but need some advice on how to get unstuck. This camera has been around for many years and was CLA'd by Bill Moretze at Pro Camera a couple of years ago. I have a F3HP in almost mint condition, but want my old pal back. Any advice on how to get the shutter unstuck would be greatly appreciated.

Disappointed_Horse · May 10, 2021

Same thing happened to my FE yesterday. I found a couple of videos on YouTube that show possible fixes (although I lack the tools, hand-eye coordination, and near vision to do them myself). Might want to search there and see what you can find.

Sirius Glass · May 10, 2021

Time to get the camera CLA'd again.

neilt3 · May 11, 2021

I've bought three F3's in recent years in order to get one .
I got third time lucky , the others went back !

It appears there is a relatively common fault that occurs causing this , from what I remember when I asked the question here .
Have a read through this ;
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/faulty-nikon-f3-shutter-or-is-it-me.171184/

It is repairable , I think the answer was clearly made in that thread , both the cause and the repair needed .
I didn't do it myself as the two faulty cameras were sold as working , so were sent back for full refunds .
Whether you repair it yourself or send it away largely depends on your abilities and if you have the correct tools and any necessary parts .
For most people it's generally best to send cameras to a professional .
They can easily fix a broken camera in one price , but rarely touch a box full of bits of dismantled failed DIY repairs !

Ironically , the third camera I bought was sold as "faulty" due to the catch on the door being broken , but works great .
I bought a replacement door for less than £15 , and the camera was half the going rate .

benjiboy · May 11, 2021

Richard Pippin said:
After many years of great service my poor old, well used, brassed F3 will no longer advance the film. Just finished shooting a roll and went to reload, but can't get the advance lever to move. Something is stuck and I'm at a loss as to why or how to fix. This could be something simple for this old brain to work out, but need some advice on how to get unstuck. This camera has been around for many years and was CLA'd by Bill Moretze at Pro Camera a couple of years ago. I have a F3HP in almost mint condition, but want my old pal back. Any advice on how to get the shutter unstuck would be greatly appreciated.

It's not divine intervention you need it's a camera repair technician, and a few $ to pay him.

Kino · May 11, 2021

Richard Pippin said:
This camera has been around for many years and was CLA'd by Bill Moretze at Pro Camera a couple of years ago.

If it were a FULL CLA, I would be knocking on his door and asking for at least a reduced rate repair.

Ironically, I had my F3 repaired by Pro Camera (unsure if he did the work himself) for exactly the same problem last year and it cost $125. No problems so far.

MattKing · May 11, 2021

Every time I see the title of this thread I start humming our alternate national anthem:
"God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!...."

Huss · May 11, 2021

I read through the other linked thread, and there was no cause or resolution. Even though people threw out ideas the end result was a broken camera that was returned to seller.

Threads like that are only useful if they describe what actually was found to be broken, and what was done to fix it.

neilt3 · May 11, 2021

Huss said:
I read through the other linked thread, and there was no cause or resolution. Even though people threw out ideas the end result was a broken camera that was returned to seller.

Threads like that are only useful if they describe what actually was found to be broken, and what was done to fix it.

It seemed to me that the cause of the jamming was summed up .
I did searches at the time elsewhere , all indicating the same fault , with the same symptoms .
It seemed that it was a fairly common issue to be found with the F3 , in comparison to other possible faults on F3's , not that the camera seemed especially prone to failure which is why I was surprised that the first two I bought had exactly the same fault .
One reply on a forum did state what caused it to jam in their camera and what was done , but I can't remember the details .
I thought there was a post in that thread that was more specific to the exact cause and how it was repaired , it must have been elsewhere .

Bottom line was if your not competent to dismantle and repair it yourself , you should send it away for repair .
And if you are competent to dismantle it and recognise the internal parts that needed attention to do a repair yourself , you'd probably have just downloaded the service manual and done it yourself rather than asking what's up with the camera and if God should save it !

Kino said:
Most likely, like my used F3, the shutter winding mechanism is (was) jammed.

I had to take mine to Pro Camera in Charlottesville, VA and they repaired this and some corrosion in the battery chamber for $95 USD.

This is, supposedly, not an uncommon problem.

Kino said:
I also removed the base plate of my F3 prior to taking it into service, but was able to determine the jam appeared to be up inside the camera body, not in the base plate area, so I punted and took it in for service...

BrianShaw · May 11, 2021

AAlfano said:
Same thing happened to my FE yesterday.

On the FE, one potential source of jam is a pendulum latch that is the final step of the wind-charge cycle. If the jam is sporadic or mostly when wound slow... suspect this. It is located under the bottom plate between the motor drive wind wheel and the body. Looks like a slotted screw head.

mshchem · May 11, 2021

If it was from Kiev, a good whack would suffice. I can fix gummed up gears with film cleaner, this would not be a good idea with a F3.

On the TV show MASH Col. Potter shot his Jeep with a 45 after a radiator failure. Just sayin'.

mshchem · May 11, 2021

Sorry, it was after it was run over by a tank.

BrianShaw · May 11, 2021

So which did you, or are you going to, do: this or that?

Richard Pippin · May 12, 2021

Taking it back to Pro Camera. I've had a long standing, great relationship with everyone there and count Bill as a personal friend. I have complete faith in all their work. The cost of keeping this old girl working, to me, is justified. I have many (too many) cameras but this one is my favorite. Going to change the batteries and see what happens.

Chan Tran · May 12, 2021

Richard Pippin said:
Taking it back to Pro Camera. I've had a long standing, great relationship with everyone there and count Bill as a personal friend. I have complete faith in all their work. The cost of keeping this old girl working, to me, is justified. I have many (too many) cameras but this one is my favorite. Going to change the batteries and see what happens.

You should be able to advance the film and release the shutter without the battery if you use the mechanical release which you should have tried already. So I think batteries is irrelevant.

Huss · May 12, 2021

neilt3 said:
It seemed to me that the cause of the jamming was summed up .
I did searches at the time elsewhere , all indicating the same fault , with the same symptoms .
It seemed that it was a fairly common issue to be found with the F3 , in comparison to other possible faults on F3's , not that the camera seemed especially prone to failure which is why I was surprised that the first two I bought had exactly the same fault .
One reply on a forum did state what caused it to jam in their camera and what was done , but I can't remember the details .
I thought there was a post in that thread that was more specific to the exact cause and how it was repaired , it must have been elsewhere .

Bottom line was if your not competent to dismantle and repair it yourself , you should send it away for repair .
And if you are competent to dismantle it and recognise the internal parts that needed attention to do a repair yourself , you'd probably have just downloaded the service manual and done it yourself rather than asking what's up with the camera and if God should save it !

The sum up was it was jammed.
Which is, well, obvious.

There was no cause, nor resolution.

neilt3 · May 12, 2021

Huss said:
The sum up was it was jammed.
Which is, well, obvious.

There was no cause, nor resolution.

Oh there was definitely a cause , part of the film wind on mechanism became jammed , otherwise the camera would have been still working !
The resolution would have been quite simple as well , had I not returned it to the seller .
I'd have sent it off to one of that dying breed of camera repair men to be professionally repaired and serviced .

As I said , when I looked into the probable cause of this the information came up on a google search .
The remedy was there as well , if your able to to the repair yourself .

If your interested , do a search on it and you'll find the specifics of the issue . Your welcome to trawl through the search results to find it .

The bottom line is that the O.P needs to send it off to be repaired , which he says he is doing in #14 .

Richard Pippin · May 12, 2021

So, I did my usual thing. Read all the responses, obsessed over what to do, went through a grief period over the obvious demise of my well worn beaten and battered F3 and proceeded to ignore all the suggestions. Picked up fresh batteries, put them in, put the film back in, put the lens back on and everything is back in working order. She was obviously just being petulant and wanted me to suffer for ignoring and taking her for granted. My cameras always work better when I treat them better than my ex wives. And yes, I've had several of those too.

Colin Corneau · May 12, 2021

Richard Pippin said:
Taking it back to Pro Camera. I've had a long standing, great relationship with everyone there and count Bill as a personal friend. I have complete faith in all their work. The cost of keeping this old girl working, to me, is justified. I have many (too many) cameras but this one is my favorite. Going to change the batteries and see what happens.

There is no price tag on the attachment we have to 'THAT' camera....good luck with it.

mshchem · May 12, 2021

Good cleaning

neilt3 · May 13, 2021

Richard Pippin said:
So, I did my usual thing. Read all the responses, obsessed over what to do, went through a grief period over the obvious demise of my well worn beaten and battered F3 and proceeded to ignore all the suggestions. Picked up fresh batteries, put them in, put the film back in, put the lens back on and everything is back in working order. She was obviously just being petulant and wanted me to suffer for ignoring and taking her for granted. My cameras always work better when I treat them better than my ex wives. And yes, I've had several of those too.

Posts #2 & #3 in the thread I linked to dealt with your issue .
Even with a dead battery the mechanical release would still work ( #3) , and the film could still be would on , which would have ruled out a jammed camera .
Also mentioned in #15 on this thread .

It's always best to make sure that an electronic device that's stopped working is being supplied with electric before looking for other faults .

At least you've got it up and running again .

ChristopherCoy · May 15, 2021

mshchem said:
Good cleaning

EX+++ Canon 5D MkII - MINT!!! 9+++ from Japan

God save my F3

How to get a shutter unstuck

Do this

Do that

Richard Pippin

Disappointed_Horse

Sirius Glass

neilt3

benjiboy

Kino

MattKing

Moderator

Huss

neilt3

BrianShaw

mshchem

mshchem

BrianShaw

Richard Pippin

Chan Tran

Huss

neilt3

Richard Pippin

Colin Corneau

mshchem

neilt3

ChristopherCoy

God save my F3

How to get a shutter unstuck

Do this

Do that

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