Asahi Pentax Spotmeter V Repair

I recently picked up an Asahi Pantax Spotmeter V to compliment my growing collection of older film cameras. I bought the spotmeter advertised as used but in good working condition...I guess everyone has different standards. It was in working condition but the calculation dials were loose and there was spider web fungus on the optics and fresnel lens where the spotmeter indicator was. There were also a couple of cracks on the plastic housing and something rattling around inside. It worked but those things really bothered me so I took it apart and fixed it all up. If you are looking to repair your Spotmeter V then hopefully these photos will help you disassemble yours and not make the mistakes I did.

Here is the spotmeter mostly disassembled


The spotmeter housing has 1 screw behind the small serial number sticker plate on the grip that needs to be removed and then also the eyecup housing needs to be unscrewed to completely remove the outer housing. Typically in electronic items there are hidden screws behind stickers and name plates, I thought there were a couple more screws underneath the Pentax badge on top of the housing and removed that also but it turned out that the top of the housing is only a snap fit piece and I buggered up the badge getting it off. I told myself it was OK because I didn't pay much for the spotmeter.

Here is the screw that lives behind the serial# sticker badge, carefully pry the sticker off at the edges or corner with a sharp razor blade. You can glue this back on later with contact cement...yes, contact cement, it works perfect and is what was used way back when.


You will also need to unscrew the eyecup piece and then using a spanner wrench remove the locking ring, I guess I forgot to get a good picture of that part so take my word on it...just unscrew by hand the eyecup piece and when removed you will see the lock ring and the 2 indent holes for the spanner wrench, unscrew and remove that and you will see something like this


Then carefully pull the housing off, the top has a snap fit piece like this


The main front lens just unscrews as a whole unit, that will get you access to the spotmeter needle and fresnel/mirror chamber, that is where I used a q-tip to clean the fresnel area. The main glass element needs to be removed by using a spanner wrench to unscrew the holding lug inside the lens housing, it is a single piece of glass so it can easily be removed and cleaned of fungus or dust.

Here is looking down into the fresnel/mirror chamber with the main lens removed


This is the dial calculation assembly removed


On the inside of the plastic housing I used some locktite to secure the nuts holding the dial calculation wheels


Here is the whole mess apart on my table


I used some Gorilla Glue to repair the cracks in the housing and used a rubber band to clamp it together during the drying period.


Everything went back together good and now I have a nice working spotmeter!

A few more photos are here

I hope this is helpful to anyone else looking to repair their Pentax Spotmeter V


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Pentax 6x7 TTL Prism Repair and Exposure Meter Adjustment

The TTL Prism on my Pentax 6x7 camera has a built in exposure meter that was starting to go a bit whacky. The needle would jump all over at random and the view finder area would go black if I tried to use the camera in any position other than the default horizontal position. And it was consistently under exposing everything by 1-1/2 stops.




I decided I would have a go at repairing it and document what I did and hopefully some other folks with similar problems will find this helpful and be able to repair their prism meters also.

First thing you need to do is get the top of the prism off. You will need to have a spanner wrench type tool for removing the top cap screw of the shutter speed dial. I have one of these. I am sure some of you creative folks will make something else work, that is fine.

There are 8 small screws around the outside that you need to remove. 2 of the screws are behind the front name plate so that must be gently pried off to get those 2 screws out.

Here is the front name plate removed and you can see where the 2 screws are located

Gently pry off the front name plate to remove the 2 screws holding the top on

After you remove the 8 screws and the shutter speed dial you can gently tap the edges of the prism top with something soft like a plastic screwdriver handle to get the top to slowly come off.

NOTE: You do not need to remove the on/off button switch to take the prism top off

You should end with this

Note the shutter speed dial spring and washers, don't lose them!

Adjusting the exposure meter when it is off a bit is not to hard, there is one big adjustment screw you can use to correct the exposure needle alignment.

Here you can see the large plastic adjustment screw. I only needed to adjust mine a couple millimeters clockwise to correct the 1-1/2 stop underexposure. Look closely and you can see the black felt pen marks I used to mark the original position and how it is now turned just slightly clockwise.

Large "POTS" adjustment screw for the built in exposure meter

 
I had 2 more problems though, the meter would go black when I tilted the camera and also the needle was very erratic. Turns out the erratic needle was a loose +6v cable on one of the prism contacts and the meter going black was from the reflecting prism being loose inside the small slot it sits in.

Here you can see the +6v wire that has come loose

Loose +6v wire

Basically I just soldered on another piece of wire and sealed it with some shrink wrap

This next photo is not very good but it is trying to show you the small refective viewfinder prism the meter uses when you look thru the viewfinder. I used some contact cement to glu it back into position. It is the rectangle glass looking thing between the two electrical posts at the bottom of the viewfinder opening.

Here is the top of the meter with the new wire soldered in place and all tucked in ready for assembly. I still need to adjust the exposure first.

Notice the exposure meter and needle assembly on the left

To adjust the exposure meter I just manually triggered the on/off switch with my hand and made several test exposures with different ISO, aperture and speed settings. I used my DSLR in center weighted mode and my Sekonic Auto Studio II light meter as the test metric devices.

Testing the exposure settings

After thorough testing with different ISO, aperture and shutter settings in both bright daylight and dim light at night I feel I have it calibrated it about as good as it can get. It is almost spot on with my DSLR and 90% spot on with my Sekonic. It is one happy prism and exposure meter now!

Happy Prism and exposure meter!

I hope this post will be helpful to anyone else looking to repair their Pentax 6x7 TTL Prism

Tokina AT-X 35mm-200mm Fungus Repair

In my box of newly donated camera gear I had a couple of lenses that were suffering from fungus and oil. One was a Tokina AT-X 35mm-200mm zoom lens. It had extensive fungus on the internal lens and I figured it did me no good as is so I took it apart and cleaned it up. This was a manual focus lens for the Olympus OM mount cameras.

I forgot to take a picture of the lens before I started working on it but it was similar to this (I found on the Internet)

Here is the patient


The first step is to remove the outside lens retainer ring set screw. Unscrew this just a a turn or two so you can unscrew the main Tokina lens ring. If you unscrew it all the way out I wish you luck getting it back in if you have bad eyes.


Next remove the 3 screws holding the outer lens in place


Shake or pop that thing out of the lens until you get this


Now remove the 3 screws that hold the inner lens in place


After I removed the screws I needed to unscrew the whole lens assembly, I was able to do this by hand. There are some spanner tool slots you can use if you have a spanner tool


Here is the internal lens removed. The inside of this lens is where most of the fungus was



I used PEC Pads and cleaner to clean all of the lens elements and a hand blower to get any dust/hairs off of the lenses. It seemed to work out well. Here are some photos from the lens after cleaning. These are all straight from the photo lab, I did not do any PP on them.

Tokina AT-X 35mm-200mm / Olympus OM-1n / Fujifilm color negative ISO 200 several years old expired film.

Rose garden at my house


Macro mode of the lens, only a couple of inches away


More roses


This is a tape measure focus shot. I measured with a tape measure the distance and used the focus ring to match, seemed to work pretty good. I did not use the viewfinder to focus.



My dog Rocky Bones


200mm zoom of my truck


2000 XT350 motor rebuild...yeah, yeah..I will fix just about anything...cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, camera lenses, computers....


Front disc brake on the XT350


Rear sprocket on the XT350


I hope this lens cleaning review helps someone else to fix their old fungus filled lens.

Out of balance Washing Machine repair / upgrade

More Performa Washing Machine repair fun. After my last washing machine finally gave out due to a rusted inner tub I decided to just buy the cheapest, cheapest washing machine I could find which of course was another quality Performa. The old saying "You get what you pay for" is certainly true with the Performa models. This DIY is more of an "upgrade" project than it is a repair. This washing machine would start to spin out of balance with anything more than a couple of T-shirts and a pair of socks which made it impossible to wash clothes for a family of five.

Looking underneath the machine I could see there were (3) flimsy springs that controlled the spinning of the tub. After a trip to the Home Depot and picking up some springs in the fence / gate isle I went to work replacing them. The springs I found were quite a bit more heavy duty and needed to have the ends twisted to match the original ones.

Here is one of the original springs looking at it from underneath



Here is the original spring on the left and the new replacement on the right


This is the new spring with the end twisted to match the original. I did this with a pair of Vise Grips and a vise.


I used a headlight spring removal/installation tool to change the springs




After replacing the 3 springs with new stronger ones the washing machine works great, it barely ever goes out of balance now!

Rusted Washing Machine Tub Repair

Welded Tub center mount

I admit it, I bought one of those piece of crap Maytag Centennial Washing machines. It is 1 1/2 years old and it has done nothing but break. Granted we use it 24/7 but it has a "Commercial Technology" stencil right on the front panel, it is not ""Commercial" quality at all. Regardless, it has broken again and I will describe how I fixed it in hopes that others may also be able to repair their busted washing machine.

You may have read my post about repairing a hole in the plastic tub and it turns out the cause was from a rusted inner spindle mount point on the main ceramic tub. I actually repaired this about 8 months ago and it is now due for another repair weld. It seems what happens is the inner ceramic tub rusts out near the main spindle and begins to crack. This causes the tub to spin out of balance and eventually begin to rub on the outer plastic tub which in turn wears a hole in it (see repair link above). The solution (temporary) is to weld up the rusted tub. I did this about 8 months ago to half of the spindle that was rusted out and now the other half has rusted so I figured I might as well take some pictures and post it.

Start by taking off the spindle cap and water sealer cap. You will need to remove the center bolt and pull out the main spindle. From there you should see the rusted tub, mine had cracks all around the center. Using a MIG welder you can weld up the cracks and make the washer usable again. I first centered the tub and spot welded it in a few places to keep it in place. Also use a wet rag to cool the welding area as there may  be rubber seals or O-rings below that can melt if overheated. Once it is all welded up I recommend a "no clothes" run on the rinse cycle to clear out any debris.

Looking down into the tub

The final weld

My MIG welder

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