Surprised there were no opinions here.
I've been in touch with Garry. He said there is a 50/50 chance that the Meter can be repaired, depends entirely on what the problem is. I'll be sending it in to him on Tuesday along with a F3 and FE2 for CLAs. If he finds he can repair the FM, he will for the cost of the CLA. This is a nice looking camera, and everything else seems to function fine.
If he can't fix it, I guess I'll get better at Sunny 16. Might be fun.
I'll post back when I get them back.
Received the cameras back today. It appears the light meter problem was with the battery compartment.
All of the cameras were sent in with batteries, two of them were returned without. All had notes in the repair invoice to install new batteries prior to use. I assume the batteries were starting to corrode or were below specs. I'll give the benefit of the doubt, especially since the repair needed was to the battery compartment. All of these cameras were recent ebay purchases, and all came with the batteries installed. The FM that needed the repair no longer has a clip on the battery cap, and a cap with a clip in place will not fit into the compartment. It appears a sleeve has been placed in the compartment itself to hold the batteries aligned. Anyway, when batteries are installed, the meter now works - I'm happy.
The F3 had some question about the film advance - allowing double exposures at the end of a roll. This only happened on one roll of film. Garry stated he checked out the double exposure mechanism as well as paid special attention to lubing and cleaning the film advance. He had told me earlier that it's possible the gearing was just worn and there was not a lot that could be done other than a good lube, and take care to be gentle with it. I assume parts are no longer available to replace the gearing.
Other than the above specifics, he lists the following service as part of the CLA and overhaul:
Shutter unit lubricated and adjusted, cleaned release magnet, run time speed adjusted, lubricated winding mechanism, light meter calibrated, exposure adjusted, replaced mirror cushion, replaced light seals, cleaned viewfinder and prism, cleaned externally/internally.
All-in-all the cameras look very good. Viewfinders, film compartment, mirror box are spotless to my eye. Turn-around time was a bit longer than stated, but not at all bad. Price was the best I've seen, $53/camera plus combined return shipping of $11 (actual cost was $10.95). All the cameras have a 90 day warranty.
I will not hesitate to send additional work Garry's way.
Hi everyone, 