Polaroid 250 Shutter Repair

[ic-racer]

I got 3 shots off on my Polaroid 250 and the shutter stuck open. This is how I fixed it.

First, the repair manual shows that the second shutter blade has a spring that can jump off its keeper. So, looking through my lens from the front I can see that this is exactly what happened.

 

[ic-racer]

To get to that spring and flip if back over the keeper one needs to take apart the front. The first thing the repair manual asks you to do is to remove and trash the indicator plate for light and dark scenes on the top of the shutter housing. Later it indicates you should peel the backing off a new plate and put it in place. Well, obviously a new plate is not available , so after the screws are out, you can slowly work the two pieces apart with gentle pressure. No up and down bending as this will bend the indicator plate.

There are 3 screws that hold the two metal pieces of the shutter housing together. To get to them I extended the bellows and used a screwdriver like this to come in from the back:

 

[ic-racer]

With the front housing apart the shutter mechanism is removed from the front of the housing. There are two screws on the shutter mechanism and two smaller brass screws on the electronics board. Caution as these two are connected by an electrical ribbon.

The front housing has a black screw in clear view and a brass screw. To get to the brass screw, partially depress the shutter cocking lever.

 

[ic-racer]

After the shutter mechanism is free from the front plate you can see the spring and grab it and pull it back over to the other side of the round keeper on the shutter blade. Now, after I did this and fired the shutter a few times it popped right back off. So I went ahead and bent the spring a little toward the film plane:

 

[ic-racer]

While the front housing is apart you can get to both sides of the rearmost lens element. The front lens element group does not come apart but you can clean the rearmost surface.

I packaged it all up and the images it took were great.