How do I remove the top plate from the Bessa R3A?

[Rumelo Amor]

Hello.

I got a Bessa R3A yesterday with a misaligned (horizontally) rangefinder, aligned it last night (I have done this with a Bessa R a couple of times), and found this morning that it's misaligned again (the screw is very wobbly and unpredictable: I think the previous owner was too vigorous with it). I want to align it again and put some nail varnish in to lock it in place. My problem is I do not know how to go about removing the top plate. I have searched on the web and I found these:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/classiccamera/discuss/72157623674423552/
http://www.huwswebthing.talktalk.net/r2align.html

but I really don't know how to take the film advance lever and shutter dial off. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Rumelo Amor]

Hi DustyWalker, thank you for replying, and for the info.

I now understand that I should use a pointed lens spanner for the two holes on top of the shutter dial. But with regards to the advance and rewind levers, I still have no idea how to remove these.

I'm fine with aligning the rangefinder myself: I've had to do this a few times with my Bessa R. It is fairly easy to follow the steps described in
http://web.archive.org/web/20050319043005/http://www.pgallery.net/cvp/99.html
and
http://www.arransalerno.com/blog/bessa-rangefinder-calibration/.

But the horizontal alignment on the R3A I have now is really unstable and easy to misalign, that is why I want to put nail varnish in to lock it in place. I think it's hard to be accurate in putting the nail varnish on the screw with the top plate in place, hence my question here. But if no guide/scheme comes up, I might just align the rangefinder again and drop nail varnish down the hole and hope that works.

 

[Rumelo Amor]

Very nice. Thanks for the link!

 

[teleparallel]

I haven't found a clean schema to remove the shutter dial and lever till now. I'm also very interested because my R4A is misaligned at least twice a year. I have the feeling that the plane and the shutter release vibrations are not good. I also have a Minolta CLE that is far more reliable on this point. I'm wondering if it's not a weakness of the R series.

For information the last time my R4 was misaligned (horizontally + vertically) I gave it to the shop and that cost 30€ to me.

I Have the R4A, for a year, bought used, never serviced, and no problem at all so far.