M5 Bottom Plate Issues

[adamr1699]

Hello,
I recently aquired a Leica M5 from a friend of mine. The camera has a loose bottom plate latch which hangs down when the camera is held upright. I went to take apart the latch mechanism to tighten the small screws that hold the latch. I could only get as far as pictured below. Does anyone know how to get the latch out to tighten it or how to fully take apart the mechanism? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2HHucb7YHWGMDRqZHdPaDBfUlNiajVOYlMwT1RmM0lfS3lN/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2HHucb7YHWGeGdEbjl4VTN1b2dQUEpjMXNudmVSLW1TakZr/view?usp=sharing

 

[mooge]

did you try tapping/pushing it out from there? For the M2 I think it's just the screw on the top and then it pushes out.

 

[adamr1699]

did you try tapping/pushing it out from there? For the M2 I think it's just the screw on the top and then it pushes out.

Yes i did try that. It seems that the tripod socket is threaded on the outside as well and needs to be unscrewed in order to remove the latch.

 

[Richard G]

This happened with my relatively new M9-P. I was horrified. I naively thought that Leica had some tiny canted screwdriver that could tighten the screw in the latch in situ. Implausible I guess.