How to lubricate roller feed on Leica M

[Jlafuria]

Hello, I want to ask you a question.
I have a Leica M4 that is very stiff to rewind the film.
(I already restored the slow gear and it works flawlessly)
The crank lever is already oiled.

How can I lubricate the advance feed?


Many thanks in advance

Jacopo

 

[rfaspen]

If rewinding is stiff, it may not be a simple lubrication issue (in fact its not likely). "Stiff" in a film M camera is often more than just lubrication. Can you describe the issue more precisely?

People here are very knowledgeable. Please do describe your stiff rewind problem in more detail.

I get worried when I hear about people "lubricating" their cameras. The process of lubricating a film M camera is not as simple as it sounds. If you search here at RFF and Leica Forum (and elsewhere) you will turn up a lot of discussion about lubricating and it will become apparent that applying oil to a camera is more often than not a poor idea. I cringe at the horror stories, or whenever "WD-40" is mentioned. I noticed that you have already applied oil to your camera -- I'm not sure what the crank lever or slow gear is, but I hope you used the correct type of oils and applied the appropriate amounts (usually very very little).

 

[Jlafuria]

How to lubricate roller feed on Leica M

I restored some M cameras, when I operate I use specific tools and lubricants to do it (no WD-40 or other).

This is the first time that I notice a quite stiffness when I rewind the roll. It works but I need to put some energy to do it. In this specific case I only shot one roll with it and I did the rewind with care, nothing broken.
It seems that the advance roller works without any strong friction in both modes (normal and R) I checked by hand a few times. But maybe the lubricants has aged with decades.

Any suggestions?
I want to fix it by myself.

From the M3 manual I found that here they used to grease with 704 Medium Grease Shell (95%)+MoS2 microfine (5%) as you can see from the pic. below.

Thank you in advance

 

[Rob-F]

I would be concerned that the sprocket may not be turning freely. Is there any damage to the sprocket holes? And is the film advance as smooth as it should be?
Also does the advance crank turn freely when there is no film?

 

[Jlafuria]

How to lubricate roller feed on Leica M

I double checked, the advance feed works properly.

The problem seems that come from the film take off spool.
It works fine in advance mode but it's stiff in rewind (works but need energy to rotate it)

Any advice to solve it correctly?

the situation is similar to this one linked here:
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/m4-stiff-rewind.412283/

Thanks