Question for camera repairers - "What does a CLA include?" - particularly for full mechanical cameras

It’s a matter of confidence. If I give a mechanical camera an overhaul, I disassemble it in groups, then go deeper with the groups, leaving pins in sometimes, taking them out. It depends on what needs to be done. The clutch assembly of the Paillard-Bolex H cameras can be rusty, oftentimes the ratchet wheel has burrs, the gears may show wear.

Clients give me little feedback but I take no news as good news. Europe!

I wanted to learn about a projector lens on a Kodascope Eight lately. The rear mount ring was relatively easy to remove. The front ring said no. After a night under oil I could convince it to turn. Black paint has gone between the threads and rested there for the past 85 years. The brass ring has marks now. Naturally I repair that. For more than a single item I buy or prepare a special expanding mandrel. Lens tooling can become expensive.

A Filmo 70-DR shows corrosion on the finder turret, the unstable alloy makes the plating flake off. Cosmetics. The ocular loses its lacquer during cleaning. It had to be cleaned because sticky with dried-up grease that hindered the threads turning for eye adjustment. The parallax corrector scale is also discoloured, I have left that.

More serious is wear to the gear train. Rotten grease on the governor. Complete disassembly. Hazy elements in the finder. Those I put in solvent, cleaned thoroughly, recemented. Work follows function.

Sometimes the maker had assembled wrongly or unfavourably. Some constructions are throw-away. I have encountered so-called professional cameras that are plain rubbish. We must not forget that during the 20th century many things got degenerated from goods to consumables. All-metal cameras can be revived in most cases but where there are plastics the risk of total failure rises dramatically. A classic are the plastic worm gears on steel shafts with movie projectors. Part of my work is to explain to people what they own. Not always fructuous.

I avoid using the term CLA because it has no definition. Like saying you took your car in for a "Tune Up." Does that mean the point gap was set or the ECU was remapped.

A camera repair would include specific procedures that are unique to the shutter or camera in question. For example removal and disassembly of an escapement. Lubrication of mating surfaces, Removal of axles and spinning gears to clean and lubricate the mating surfaces, setting shutter curtain tension, calibration of electrical circuits, etc.

ic-racer said:

I avoid using the term CLA because it has no definition. Like saying you took your car in for a "Tune Up."

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Me too. I do not use the term, as it is about as open to interpretation (and therefore abuse) as it gets.

Laurent said:

your tool seems interesting! I'm about to make some myself, and did not think of 3D printing for this. Is this a design you found, or did you do it yourself?

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It's my own design, and it seems that I need to make a slightly different tool for every camera I work on.

Andreas Thaler said:

When removing the mirror box, which also holds the lens bayonet, I'm worried that the flange focal distance - the distance between the lens and the film - will no longer be correct.

What are your experiences with this?

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Hmm. it's easy enough to increase the distance from flange to focal plane by adding spacers behind the lens mount, and I've encountered this with FED, Salyut and Bronica ETRSi. ETRSi goes one step further by using small washers of different thickness around the circumference of the lens mount, correcting not just the distance, but also the parallelism. But to date I have not observed shims being used in this manner around mirror box mounting screws.

But impact damage can damage SLR mirror box castings, causing misalignment, and this is exactly what I see in an Olympus OM1 purchased for parts: One side of the frame measures 46.0 mm from flange to focal plane, as it should, while the other is closer to 45 mm, causing photos to be visibly out of focus. I have not yet decided how to address this, but one thought is to see if it's possible to bend the metal casting back into alignment, but there's a risk that the part will simply crack.

When reattaching a mirror box or lens mount, I torque them as I might an automobile engine cover, starting with light torque, then progressively tightening the screws in stages, with the goal of minimizing possibily of deforming the part. I don't know that this makes a meaningful difference when servicing a camera, but it gives me some peace of mind!

4season said:

When reattaching a mirror box or lens mount, I torque them as I might an automobile engine cover, starting with light torque, then progressively tightening the screws in stages, with the goal of minimizing possibily of deforming the part. I don't know that this makes a meaningful difference when servicing a camera, but it gives me some peace of mind!

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Thank you!

I'm about to remove the front cover with the mirror box on my Nikon F4.

In the repair manual, there are no instructions regarding screwing in the removal and installation instructions, so I think that a strong but sensible tightening is the right thing to do. What else could it be.

4season said:

It's my own design, and it seems that I need to make a slightly different tool for every camera I work on.

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Even for my Canon(s) several sizes are needed. I did not think of 3D printing for this, but will definitely as this is much easier

Chan Tran said:

I think I get the answer or rather a confirming of what I thought. Unless you can do the CLA yourself and the enjoyment of doing it is the reason you can't have a camera like the Minolta Srt-101 CLA by someone and it makes sense. The cost of a good CLA would be more than the replacement camera in good condition.
Retina you spend 10 hours and earn only $200 it's rather a low rate. Even if you considered your labor is only worth $20 an hour you still have to charge more for your overhead. So if you make a living doing it you do have a source of income somewhere like retirement fund or something.

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It can make sense if you think of obsolescence. You re-start the clock on an SRT-101 with a CLA down to the drums.

If you don’t get down to the curtains like that, it’s just a short time until the camera goes out of whack

I worked in the shop of a repair tech with 40 years experience (I was doing admin, counter, shipping, et.c not repairs). He was the only repairman for a large area so he saw everything. Instamatic 126 with jammed film found in a great aunt's drawer to latest digital Hasselblad about to go on assignment across the country. He had seen so much and worked on so many cameras that he knew what failed where, what needed a swipe of cleaner, what needed deeper work, what needed to be thrown out and replaced. And so, Chan Tran, I think this is one approach to a CLA- you do what is needed to get that particular camera model working as it should. He could unjam a Penta K1000 and get everything working smoothly in half an hour. And he did not disassemble the whole camera; he went to the weak points and made them better. To me this would be the best type of CLA- an informed checking of all the parts of a camera based on important functions and expected failures.

I've been in a used camera store and watched the owner pull the bottom off of a K1000, grab the Rosinol bottle, and flood the insides. Turn it over, let it drip dry, pop the bottom back on. The customer came in, the camera worked, and out the door. I guess that the owner figured that by the time the Rosinol dried up the next the guy would be back home 100 miles away?

The guy I worked for would laugh in disgust at my tendency to disassemble and rebuild. Then again, I work on cameras that allow for this. I look at some of the photos in this thread of the insides of 35mm SLRs with basic electronics and I am lost. So many layers, levers flying from one assembly to another for no apparent reason, etc. Mechanical medium format cameras are a collection of distinct functions with minor interactions with each other.

I'm with others- CLA means nothing and is just a simple way to ask for a camera to be checked out. There are cameras where regular maintenance when used at a professional level is needed. But most cameras these days aren't being used anywhere near their limits that require regular maintenance. Old grease and dirt are the problems, which unfortunately can require the deepest cleaning. Some cameras are worth doing a real overhaul if you are going inside anyway. Like a Rolleiflex or a Kodak Medalist, where the mechanics are designed to be broken apart and maintained. But realistically, lots of cameras were never meant to be CLA'd, overhauled, maintained, or to last more than five years.

In my opinion, once a mechanical assembly reaches an age of >40yrs, each and every bearing and gear has to be completely disassembled, cleaned from all old lubricant and reassembled. I do not know how many CLA jobs are done down to this level as it involves quite some work.
The age of many mechanical cameras is way beyond their design lifetime. It's just like cars. They work for ~20yrs with standard service (oil, belts etc.) but at some point later in life, things age past their useful life and the whole thing has to be rebuilt.
Same with clocks. Old oil and dust makes a good abrasive compound. When the clock runs for decades without service, the bearings and pinions suffer heavy damage which could be prevented with a thorough cleaning in good time.

When i look at a 1970 Hasselblad, take the cover of the front gear off and there is vintage grease on the parts, despite being CLA'd some time ago, then i'd say all of this has to be completely torn apart for cleaning. Each movement with the grime and old lubricant means way more
wear than necessary.

The more i think about this, the more i am inclined to get a beaten up 500C/M to practice my skills

Photomultiplier said:

In my opinion, once a mechanical assembly reaches an age of >40yrs, each and every bearing and gear has to be completely disassembled, cleaned from all old lubricant and reassembled.

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And then you are left with a camera good as new.

The next decision is to pick a camera that was good to start with. That might be Nikon F, Leica M2, Rolleiflex, Hasselblad. These have reputations for being engineered to last. Best to start there.

I have a Nikon F3AF here that has obviously not been used since bought new in the early 80s. Absolutely no signs of wear. Only the dampers and seals have fallen apart. The camera winds up smoothly and works.

And the same goes for other Nikon F3, Canon F-1 (New), Minolta X and Olympus OM-4s. The mechanics of these electromechanical cameras from the 80s obviously need neither maintenance nor overhaul. It would therefore make no sense to take them apart.

It was different with my Nikon F2, fully mechanical cameras from the 70s. They ran rough when winding up, the shutter speeds were probably off or the Photomic viewfinders had problems.

After the service at Sover Wong, the cameras were unrecognizable. The mechanics were smooth as butter, everything purred, you could immediately feel that the F2 and Photomics were now clean inside and newly lubricated. An example of a complete CLA, as Sover also describes and offers on his website.

I own a Pentax Spotmatic F (altough i seldom use 35mm) that sat in a cupboard for at least 17years. In 2007 when i got it, it worked perfectly, no problems with slow exposure times in the escapement mechanism. Today it still behaves.
Maybe the japanese Designers relied more on skillfully selected material pairs instead of lubrication, at least in those areas prone to such problems. Altough i think there might be some bearings that would require cleaning by now...

@Bill Burk: Exactly. Nothing feels better than a mechanism where you know that the old abrasive aka lubricant has been fully removed
Hasselblads are the only cameras i really do some work on, as they are my primary and only workhorses.
The backs have been serviced by myself for a long time. Mostly a matter of cleaning, reassembly and correctly lubing.
I did not touch the bodies yet, but now that i have fully understood the mechanism, i learned to trust them again. It's a pretty nice mechanism. A bit convoluted, but no rocket science. One of the simpler SLR mechanisms in my opinion.
As soon i get some beaten up 500, i will delve into service work

Photomultiplier said:

As soon i get some beaten up 500, i will delve into service work

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Have fun! I completed my 500c + A12 + 120 S-Planar project last year. More so than other camera I've serviced, the 500c felt like a hand-crafted product, with gears fastened onto shafts via rolled steel pins. I actually disassembled seemingly everything which could be disassembled, because one of the "barn doors" on my camera was broken, the mirror needed to be extracted from it's metal frame, and the lens-winding gears were unsynchronized (how?!). On Youtube, I found ICTCamera's series of videos very helpful, but IIRC, I nevertheless needed to figure out some details on my own.

How did you adjust and check flange distance/coplanarity, mirror angle and focusing screen alignment?

Photomultiplier said:

How did you adjust and check flange distance/coplanarity

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I didn't, but I imagine that a measurement device such as the one in your avatar might be useful! That, and a small hammer. But as the results looked pretty good via my improvised collimator, I did not attempt to make any additional adjustments.

mirror angle

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I needed to remove the mirror from it's metal frame, because the foam behind the mirror had deteriorated. With new foam installed, the mirror presses flat against it's metal frame instead of rattling around. Not sure to what extent mirror height or angle could be otherwise adjusted, and in any event, viewfinder collimation is done via...

and focusing screen alignment?

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When I originally disassembled the camera, I took note of how many turns of each height adjustment screw had been used.

When I reassembled the camera, I used those settings as my starting point. I pointed the camera at a distant object, verified that focus as seen on the screen closely matched what I observed at the focal plane, both in the center, and in the corners.

The mirror dampers were also overdue on 2 of my bodies. My technician replaced them. Random focusing issues were pretty apparent. A quick check is to look for direct contact between the mirror and the 3 small nubs in the mirror frame.

I'd like to build such an alignment fixture. Even when not used for repairing, it is nice to be able to check a body by myself if something is out of whack (bump on the lens etc.) without having to go to the repairman every time.

With a dial indicator (similar to the one on my avatar), a surface plate and an turned insert to set the camera up with its bayonet plate facing down, the body length and coplanarity could be measured, yes.
To get the mirror angle and focusing screen right, some additional tools will be necessary. All of those features are included in the focusing gauge called V-2229.
The gauge could either be built similar to the original one or by using separate tools, as long as the design intent has been understood.

If i am not completely mistaken, the alignment procedure is as follows:

1) Focal distance and coplanarity between front bayonet and rear plate
2) Mirror alignment to 45° relative to those previously established planes (done optical with the sighting tube)
3) Alignment of the focusing screen plane to be 45° relative to the mirror and consequently 90° to the bayonet/film plane

From a geometrical point of view, the mirror could be slightly out of alignment and the focusing screen could be aligned according to the mirror, but that is a bad idea, since it would require several points to be aligned for focus on the screen.
The correct way (again, educated guess/assumption) is to get the mirror exactly to 45° and then the screen frame (plane established by 4 adjusting screws the screen sits on) square to the film plane. This can be done with a focusing screen "dummy" (V-4705) plate and
the dial indicator.

Advantage: The screen now is in perfect alignment and only its height has to be adjusted (by turning all 4 screws the exact same amount each time to not spoil the squareness), which can be done with an split screen focusing screen.

Reminds me a bit of machine guideway measuring and scraping. All depends on the proper sequence of measuring and adjusting.

Photomultiplier said:

With a dial indicator (similar to the one on my avatar)

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Looks to me sorta like a Millimess where passing over a human hair would peg the needle; a little too much precision (limited travel) for camera checking?

FWIW, and I suspect you already know this, there was a V-2229 jig advertised here some time back, with photos. So might give some useful ideas to anyone considering making their own test jigs.


Not a Hassy guy myself; I have no knowledge about the setups beyond the photos.

Yes, Mahr Millimess with +/-0.05mm range and 1um per division. Too sensitive for "normal" work like cameras, where a standard dial indicator with 0.01mm per division would be used. The Millimess is used for critical work like machine spindle runout and that kind of stuff.

Nice photos in the link. The V-2229 is really an elusive species I have seen one in real life too.

Regarding manufacturing precision, it is pretty normal toolmaking work, nothing fancy. One might even get away without a surface grinder, just by fine milling an/or some scraping.
There is a german saying: They are just cooking with water too

If i only had more time besides my main projects. It would be fun building those fixtures...

Photomultiplier said:

Yes, Mahr Millimess with +/-0.05mm range and 1um per division. Too sensitive for "normal" work like cameras, where a standard dial indicator with 0.01mm per division would be used. The Millimess is used for critical work like machine spindle runout and that kind of stuff.

Nice photos in the link. The V-2229 is really an elusive species I have seen one in real life too.

Regarding manufacturing precision, it is pretty normal toolmaking work, nothing fancy. One might even get away without a surface grinder, just by fine milling an/or some scraping.
There is a german saying: They are just cooking with water too

If i only had more time besides my main projects. It would be fun building those fixtures...

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With the Nikon F4, which I have on my table right now, it's easy.

You need a special Nikon device to adjust the mirror, among other things. There probably aren't many of these left in the world

How does this contraption look?

Mr Bill said:

Looks to me sorta like a Millimess where passing over a human hair would peg the needle; a little too much precision (limited travel) for camera checking?

FWIW, and I suspect you already know this, there was a V-2229 jig advertised here some time back, with photos. So might give some useful ideas to anyone considering making their own test jigs.

For Sale - Genuine Hasselblad Factory Service Tools 4 Piece Jig V-2229

Super rare complete factory jig set up for ground glass alignment, focusing alignment, and mirror adjustment. This tool is a must have for any Hasselblad service rep and saves hours of time. All items are as pictured. Please ask if you have any questions at all. The base tool is heavy as it’s...

www.photrio.com

Not a Hassy guy myself; I have no knowledge about the setups beyond the photos.

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Sweet! But even if it were still available, at 4000 USD, it would easily exceed the cumulative value of my film camera collection
But it might be worthwhile to take inspiration from it, and figure out ways to replicate it's functionality in a way that's more accessible to the hobbyist, and more universally applicable to a wider variety of cameras. Because who knows when I'll have another Hasselblad in my repair queue?

The easiest way for the body checking (flange distance) would be a granite surface plate, a stand for the dial indicator, some gauge blocks and an insert/cylinder (turned on a lathe) for the bayonet with a precisely known height.
All those things are available off the shelf (not even expensive when one shops for chinese made stuff), except for the cylinder which has to be custom made.
This setup allows for basic checking to determine if the camera has been knocked out of alignment, but to adjust the mirror and screen, additional tools are needed.
The gauge integrates all this very nicely, as you can measure(!!) the correct alignment of the focusing screen without error prone and totally unpractical fiddling around, as well as the 45° alignment of the mirror.

For example, it would be possible to build a 45° sighting tube on a machined stand so it can be put onto the granite plate, but in this case, the camera would sit with it's bayonet facing down and the tube would have to collide with the plate (looking upwards). Furthermore,
it would not be possible to reach the adjustment points for the mirror. Adjustment in Hasselblad terms means bending metal parts and/or striking them with a hammer
So it would have to sit on its back plate to be able to use the sighting tube. And that's exactly what the gauge does. Gives access to the front for mirror adjustment and body length and the screen is adjusted from the side with the same
dial indicator and straight edge plus some metal insert which is used instead of the focusing screen.

Excuse my musings, but as my avatar implies, i have a soft spot for this kind of stuff