Just had a wild time trying to fix a stuck shutter on a 70s SLR

I was working on this old Pentax K1000 with a shutter that wouldn't fire. First, I tried my usual go-to, a tiny bit of lighter fluid on the pivot points. That just made it gummy. Then I remembered an old timer telling me to use pure isopropyl alcohol and a toothpick, working it in slowly. After about 15 minutes of that, the shutter snapped clean. The lighter fluid trick is a total trap for these old metal parts. Anyone else have a better fix for seized leaf shutters?

2 comments

2 Comments

abbyk102mo ago

Yeah, the lighter fluid trap is real. My buddy did that exact thing to a Yashica Electro last year and it basically turned the slow speed gears into glue. He ended up having to soak the whole shutter assembly in naptha for a day to break it all down again, which was a huge pain. Pure alcohol is definitely the safer bet for just cleaning out old grease.

nathan_webb2mo ago

But what if the old grease is really thick and sticky? Sometimes lighter fluid cuts through that gunk faster than alcohol does. You just have to be careful and clean it all out right away.