Cleaning hazy 7s 2

[ricardovaste]

Hi,

I have a Minolta 7s2. The VF is a little hazy, I find it difficult to see the exposure info at times which is annoying. My previous one was very bright in comparison (I still have it, despite it being broken otherwise). I've taken my previous one apart, so can take off the top plate.... Is it straight forward, what should I clean? Or can this not be recovered? OR is this a job for a real professional only?

Thanks for your help,
Richard

 

[Flood]

Disclaimer first: I'm just a n00b waiting for 2 7sIIs I bought last week, who researched the web about this the last few days.

It looks like the top comes off comparably easily and that you can clean all VF/RF parts with a q-tip and distilled water - just don't touch the rear (silver) side of the beamsplitter, the angled mirror in the VF path.

The metal coating on the beamsplitter coming off seems to be a common problem, so if this part looks worse on yours than on your parts camera, you can consider either swapping the splitter or the complete VF/RF assembly.

 

[Flood]

I have just received the first of my Hi-Matics and it looks like we're in the same boat. 🙁

Although she's absolutely gorgeous and looks like new, the RF patch and the meter scale are incredibly dim. I cleaned everything from outside which made it somewhat better and then removed the top plate. The problem is that the RF assembly is covered by a black hood, fixed with 3 phillips screws and they just won't budge.

Did you manage to remove those on your donor camera to clean the inside of the lenses?

In the end, I put a narrow strip of tape over the right side of the VF front window which makes the meter scale at least usable in daylight. I might do the same thing for the RF patch.

HI-matic with case, Auto 118X flash and flash case

VF window with tape strip

 

[Flood]

OK, new day. I opened her up today, as the f-stop scale in the VF was so fuzzy/out of focus I couldn't read it. Turns out you can easily lift off the glued black cover of the RF assembly. I cleaned the inside and she's much better now.

For some reason, the vertical RF alignment seems to be a bit off now. Does anybody have a photo of the adjustment screw?