Ambi Silette Rangefinder Adjustment/Mysterious Spring

[Mippy]

Hi! I have an AS with a rangefinder that is way off vertically. I cannot for the life of me see how to adjust this. Can anyone help? I did find a Japanese site that had some pictures, but they seem to be of a different model from mine (mine has a prism within the viewfinder).

Also, when taking apart the viewfinder to have a look, I found a very small thin spring - it looks like a coil of hair with a long piece at one end. This seems to have come off when unscrewing the plate that provides the parallax changer, but I cannot for the life of me work out where it goes. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

 

[KoNickon]

I wish I could help you -- I think I opened up my Ambi-Silette to clean the viewfinder when I first got it, 10 years ago now probably. And yes, that spring popped out. I was able to hook it over the frameline mask, I believe, and the parallax adjustment worked fine. Just dumb luck on my part I guess. No, I'm not going to open mine up again and tempt fate! Good luck -- trial and error I'm afraid.

 

[nhchen]

If you look on YouTube, Chris Sherlock has a camera repair channel and I remember him disassembling the two different ambi silette models, both the earlier and later one. If you watch that it would probably help you understand what to do.
Regards Nathan

 

[Mippy]

Thank you Nathan - he seemed to think it was the two screws between the front windows that adjusted it, but neither myself nor a more technical friend could work out how to adjust it that way. The rangefinder should theoretically be verticaly adjustable!

 

[titrisol]

I know this thread is old, but since I managed to adjust the RF horizontally...
In the v2 (type 2091) there is a tiny chrome screw under the RF unit. That screw touches the arm that transmits the distance from the lens and adjusting/loosening it allowed me to adjust the RF for infinity and 2m
I didn't need Vertical adjust
In the parts list for the Ambi (v1) they name it 17720 (Adjusting screw)

There is no description of the spring you mention, but most probably is for the parallax adjustment.