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Had to choose between a donor body and a full shutter rebuild today
A vintage Nikon F2 came in with a sticky curtain. The owner wanted it fixed but didn't want to spend a fortune. I had a parts camera with a good shutter but a busted prism. The choice was: spend maybe 4 hours doing a full clean and re-lube on the original, or about 90 minutes swapping the whole shutter assembly from the donor. I went with the swap to keep the cost down for them. It worked perfectly on the first test fire! Has anyone else found that a clean donor swap is sometimes the more reliable fix for these old metal shutters?
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davis.noah1mo ago
Ever see a guy try to fix a sticky Leica M3 shutter with a full rebuild? My buddy did... spent a whole weekend on it, got it all back together, and the curtain still dragged in the cold. He found a donor body with a good shutter but a cracked top plate a month later. Swapped the whole unit in an afternoon and it's been perfect for years now. Sometimes the old grease is just too set in its ways.
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christopher_sullivan1mo ago
Swapping shutters feels like a band-aid to me. That donor body @davis.noah mentioned could have hidden wear, and you just passed the problem along. A proper rebuild, even if it takes longer, actually fixes the camera.
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