u/gotDeus

Got this 90mm 1.25 in a bargain trade a while back. Traded away a 7A 50mm 1.1 that I wasn’t really using.
Looked clean until I noticed grease creeping into the aperture blades after sitting in my display cabinet for a few months.

Opened it up and found an absolutely stupid amount of helicoid grease everywhere. Whoever serviced this thing really went for it. Either that or he applies the same philosophy to drinking alcohol.

So I took it down to the blades, cleaned/degreased everything, and put it back together with a more reasonable amount of grease.

Haven’t even properly shot with it yet, I just need to find time to take pictures instead of taking cameras apart.

Disassembly notes:
- There’s 2 the rear elements accessible from the back held by a lock ring, observe orientation
- The helicoid is accessible from the rear mount/body and must be separated from the focusing barrel & mid-body. Take note or mark where you start unscrewing and where the helicoid separates.
- The front lens group is held by the nameplate ring and comes off as 1 assembly. The ball bearing and spring for the aperture detents is located just under the aperture marker and will fly off when the front housing is removed.
- Aperture front plate/blades is held on by a c-clip and aperture lever.

Both excited and GAS enabled. But these will keep me busy for a while as all 4 need work. Grandpa is moving so he just gave me all these on top of what he already gave me the past years. I have not carefully looked into each but just by trying each for a couple of minutes before going back to lifting stuff. Cant wait to see if i can bring them back to life!

Nikon FM / Series E 100mm f2.8
- Heavily Brassed
- Advance / shutter seized
- Corroded battery terminals
- Dirty viewfinder
- prism spots

Nikon F2 / DP1 / 50mm f2
- Pretty good condition
- Advance / shutter / preview lever / lock seized
- erratic light meter
- Dirty Viewfinder

Canon AE-1 + 17mm f4 lens
- Non-responsive to diy battery (x4 Lr44)
- Dim viewfinder

QL17
- Front lens barrel loose
- film advance works but shutter does not fire.

+ some lenses, filters, macro extensions etc.

I won an “as-is” parts camera lot off eBay a while back. And these two were buried in the pile, a heavily disassembled Bessa R3A and R4M, both missing parts. Most importantly, neither had a rangefinder assembly, and the bag of extra parts looked like they came from multiple different Bessas mixed together.

The R3A was too far gone from the start, so I used it mostly as a donor body. The R4M, though, looked like it had a chance. After piecing together what I could from the random parts pile, I finally got the advance assembly installed and, surprisingly, the shutter actually fired.

By luck i found someone parting out an R2A and took a gamble on the rangefinder assembly not knowing if it would actually fit.

The exposure meter readout display from the R2A vs the R4M had different sized flex cables, not exactly plug n play but the mounting holes lined up. I also swapped over the R2A top and bottom plates the seller gave me so the frameline indicators matched and now the R2A’s original on/off switch works as a shutter lock instead.

The film door and front mounting plate came from the R3A, so now the whole camera has a uniform speckled matte finish compared to the semi gloss R4M. I don’t have the original grips but slapped on a faux leatherette that I traced and hand cut.

The rewind assembly was missing from both the R4M and R3A, so it’s currently running the R2A rewind crank and shaft too. Different collars, but surprisingly interchangeable.

One interesting thing I found: the R4M actually DOES have a built-in self timer, just like the original Bessa R. Cosina simply never added the external lever or cutout for it.

So yeah, this camera is basically one working Bessa R built from 3 dead ones.

Still need to fine tune the rangefinder calibration before putting a roll through it, but this has definitely been one of the most satisfying camera saves I’ve done so far.

Also, if anyone happens to have an R4A light meter display assembly lying around, let me know. Thanks!