No aperture seen thru viewfinder so feeling brave I removed the top cover, found the small mirror that had become dislodged, figured out where it belongs and glued it in place.
Feeling quite happy now that I can see the aperture in the viewfinder, I decide to tackle the air spring with my new found confidence to address the dreaded shutter lag that seems to dog these old classics. Bad move!
The air spring fasteners were a little stubborn yet the process seemed to go ok. Although now that it's reassembled, I appear to have stuffed something as the mirror flips up and the shutter fires automatically when I wind-on. Everything seems normal on the forward stroke of the wind-on arm, nevertheless the mirror flips up and the shutter fires about half way through the return stroke. The behaviour is the same in manual mode "o", or electronic mode (the meter LEDs appear to be working), so I think it is a mechanical issue.
I've been thru the "Minolta XD 11 repair guide" although it lacks descriptive schematics for manual operation. I was hoping there may still be some Minolta guru's out there who could offer some further guidance ?
Thanks in Adv.