Nikon FE Film advance lever Swings Loose / Shutter won't fire

[ClancyMM]

Recently the shutter on my Nikon FE won't fire, and the film advance lever just swings loose and won't advance the film and cock. Has anyone else had this issue?



Thanks!

 

[John Koehrer]

The retaining cap on the lever would be the first guess.
There are a couple of washers under the lever that should keep tension
on the lever
If I remember right, the coupling on that camera is a disc with a
finger bent upward that engages the lever. If everything is there, it still should not swing freely.

 

[ClancyMM]

Thank you so much for the response!

Fortunately I was able to fix this problem last night.

After taking off the bottom plate and fiddling with the winder cog/cam I could feel it falling back into sequence. No 100% sure what I did, I think it had to do with very lightly pushing/moving a component on the left side of that cog. What a relief!

Things that didn't work for my situation:
M90, Bulb, changing batteries, Manually moving the takeup spool, and using a coin to turn the cog on the bottom.

Did not try any lubrication or modifying the retaining cap but I will keep that in mind for future issues.

Thanks again for the help! It feels good to know there are places like this in case things ever go wrong.