RZ67: Rough Winding from Worn Coupler and Sticky Governor
Originally posted on Instagram. Notes from the repair bench, kept here as a searchable archive. View the original on Instagram
While I am not taking in RZ67 models right now as I work on my backlog of repairs to bring things to a manageable level, I do have some of these in the pipeline that I am servicing.
This particular example had very rough winding. And, it turned out that the problem was caused by two different issues.
First issue was that the cocking ring (on the front of the body) had a badly damaged/worn cocking ring gear drive coupler. Photo two shows the gear in place and photo four shows the gear disassembled with the worn coupler. After replacement and calibration of the cocking ring that problem was fixed. Photo five shows the test jig installed in place of the lens and how when fully cocked, the ring should stop at 110 degrees and come to rest at around 105 degrees. If this is not set up properly, you will have too much overtravel or not enough energy to fully cock the shutter.
After this work was done, the wind stroke was still not smooth. I discovered that the cocking ring governor (photo six) was quite sticky and erratic. After removal and cleaning, it works smoothly as seen in photo seven. This governor slows down the movement of the lens cocking ring when the shutter is released, which in turn slows down the mirror. Otherwise the mirror would slam upward with a lot of force and destroy itself. I am not sure why the governor was sticky but upon disassembly of the camera, I was hit with the smell of what I would call oily perfume. Was something squirted into the camera when it was not working properly?
Something to keep in mind when looking to buy an RZ67: While I like the camera as it is built to a little higher spec than the RB67, these late 1970’s / early 1980’s electromechanical cameras are starting to show their age and can be a service problem. May be repairable but at a high cost. Or not repairable at all. If you are willing to take that risk, it can be a great camera.
