Newbee needs help with GSN repair

[Sadanand]

Hi everybody,

I am new here although been lurking sometime. This is my first post. Won the auction for Yashica GSN. The package arrived yesterday. Cosmetically I would rate it a 8. Camera fired with battery(Used 4 LR44 with a home made adapter with hints taken from this forum. Thanks. It works well). Battery check, Over/Low lights work.Shutter seems to be working fine.

Now the bad part:

1) The light seals are gooy. Can see that very clearly. There is no way that I can a run a roll of film through with the camera in this state.
2) There is a spot on the lens. I can't say if it is fungus since I have not seen a lens with fungus. I don't know if it is dust either.
3) Dim view finder. Could do with cleaning.
4) A dent on the filter thread

Considering what I paid -- 15US$ for camera +31US$ shipping -- I want to try and repair this myself with out incuring additional costs if possible. I have not done any camera repairs before. But I am OK with handling tools and can do little repair work.

I need help in the following area. Please help me.

Light seals -- I gathered good amount of info on this from the Yashica guy's website and the others. What is the exact material most suitable for this that I need to get here. I have no idea. Any pictures or websties would be most helpful. I am very much confused about the type of material to use here.

Lens cleaning -- What is the best procedure to do this?. How do I make sure that the spot which I see is fungus or not. If it is fungus is any special cleaning material available?

Dim view finder - Is this a DIY job? Any known problems or pitfalls here?

Appreciate any help and thanks to all in advance

Cheers,
SS

 

[parks5920]

Jon Goodman sells light seal kits on ebay that are simply the BEST! It comes with very simple instructions and pictures to change the light seals on your GSN. Jon is also a member of the RFF.
I read somewhere that common cold cream will remove fungus from a lens, don't quote me on that, but you may want to check into it. Good luck!

JP

 

[Pherdinand]

I second buying a light seal kit from Jon Goodman. The cheaper ones are good enough; they cost 6$ plus 80 cents shipping or something like that. Comes with a bamboo stick perfect for removing old gooed light seals.
Viewfinder: definitely a DIY job. You'll have to remove the camera top cover: three screws on the sides + film wind lever + ISO/ASA dial + rewind lever. The latter removes by opening the back and keeping the inner part of the rewind "spool" fixed while rotating the outer part counter-indicated.
The battery check button will probably fall out. It's a bit tricky to put iot back when you finished; needs some patience.

The viewfinder itself - probably only the windows are fogged or dusty inside. You can rub them gently with a q-tip or softer tissue sprayed with alcohol. Don't rub the coated inner mirrors if they are not really dirty; you don't want to remove the rf spot.

Lens cleaning: Fungus looks like it has a spot and small very thin arms reach out of it radially, more or less. If it's on the outside you might try to remove it as you would remove any dirt: dry cloth or lens cleaning tissue or VERY small amount of alcohol on one of these. If it's inside the lens, you'd have to dismantle the lens which can be problematic with a dented filter ring. If it's not a big spot just a speckle, i would leave it like that. A lens needs a lot of stuff on it before you can see the deterioration on the photos.

Good luck.

 

[jon_flanders]

When you take the top off the GSN, first put a small strip of tape across the battery check button to keep it from falling out..

You can knock the dent out of the filter ring with a dowel and a strip of wood cut with a partial circle that roughly matchs the radius of the camera. Round off the end of the dowel
to match the ring as well.

Use a hammer to pound the dowel on the dented portion of the ring until you get the dent out. You might need someone to hold the camera for you while you do this.

 

[jon_flanders]

If you can get the front lens element out and find that the fungus is between the cemented glass either in the front or the back, put out a request for a lens element. I don't have a spare front element right now, but others might.

 

[Sadanand]

Wow! Four replies already in such a shot time. Boy ... Am I glad I found this forum!!

I think after reading so much from this forum and those websites like Matt's and Yashica guy I am really tempted to attempt the light seals replacement. That's also partly because I am not really opening up anything here. But I am not confident of opening-up the top cover as yet!. Tried a while ago, I am not able to unscrew the rewind lever top. Looks like it is sort of stuck. I will need to free that. Can I use lighter fluid here?

Jon_flanders, Thanks for all the input... I don't know if I can do the lens part as yet. Not that it not doable... but mainly due to my confidence and knowledge. I know nothing about the camera and interior parts!! I am a big blob when it comes to that.

I am really thankful to all of you... Pls keep the information coming... it will help.

Cheers 🙂
SS

 

[Justin Smith]

Congratualtions on your purchase. I am in the middle of cleaning an Electro GS, and had to remove the front element to clean some fungus from the elements. I ended up using a suction cup with a slightly larger diameter than the lens in order to grip the retaining ring and unscrew it. Make sure that you apply pressure to the ring area only to prevent the suction cup from comimng into contact with the front element and possibly scratching it.

Good luck.!

 

[Sadanand]

It's me again... with some more questions. Pls help me.

OK I have decided to replace the light seals and clean the view finder for now. The lens cleaning can wait. Also I don;t know if I would be able to do that.

But I am unable to take off the ASA dial. Basically I think I need the right tools here. What is it that I require here. A picture of the exact tool would be very helpful since I am not conversant with these. Oh, the rewinder knob could be unscrewed with a pointed tweezwers. But the ASA dial is so small that the tweezer seems to be big for it.

Please help.

 

[derevaun]

An alternative is to put a spot on the front of the viewfinder, as described in this link:

http://rick_oleson.tripod.com/index-165.html

That'll make it easier to use until you have the time & energy to do the less minor surgery.

 

[Sadanand]

greyhoundman, Very much appreciated. I have read your previous posts on this forum. To users like me you are a 'godsendman' 🙂

derevaun, yes I have seen that website before and I did exactly that. It help me to a degree but I still need to do the cleaning.

OK here is what I did. I have managed to putin the light seals!!. Big achievment for me. I have openedup PCs before. But not a camera. This is fascinating indeed. Now I putin a roll of 400 film and took this beauty for a spin. Attached are the pictures. I find these not sharp as through a Yashinon lens of electro 35.

I have also observed :

a) My battery is consumed in no time. Obviously there is a leak. Where could that be?

b) The film did not rewind properly back into the canister. When I was rewinding I could feel something is not right there. It was a kind of loose feel with the result that the initial frames were lost. Again, where to look for?

Wow the feeling of shooting with this camrea is great!. If possible I want to get this machine back to shape.

Appreciate any help.

 

[Pherdinand]

I use a pair of very sharp pointy tweezers for the asa dial.

 

[Sadanand]

Thanks Pherdinand. Any idea on the battery problem and the film rewind (back into the canister) problem that I mentioned above? My battery hardly lasted an hour or so. Wonder where to look. So is the case with the film rewind into canister. Something is not right there. Any idea where I should be looking ?

Many thanks for the help....

 

[Pherdinand]

Like this, i can't say where you might have a leak for the current. Does everything function as should? Do the over/under exposure lamps behave as supposed? But if it consumes a battery in an hour, you have a serious short somewhere. Even the light meter if it would be always on, should not consume that much in my oppinion. Or, it was a bad battery maybe.

Film rewind: You could try to look at it with the back open, with a bad roll of film. Lose, you mean you turn the wheel and there's no tension? Maybe it just got lose from the original spool inside the cassette - it could happen, if you overtensioned at the last frame. Or from the heat, humidity. dunno what are the conditions in India. I have no other idea about this.

 

[tekgypsy]

not wanting to hijack this thread.... but i also just got a helluva deal on a GSN from eBay.. problem is with the battery compartment.. lid won't unscrew.... seems to be stripped... any ideas on getting this beast open?

for future reference, any suggestions for repair facilities for Yashica?

TIA,
woody

 

[RichardS]

For repair of Yashica cameras try http://www.markhama.com/ His web site gives his phone number, fax number and e-mail address.

Dick

 

[Pherdinand]

woody, you can try to remove the complete bottom plate. It should be easy, a few screws only.Then you can see from inside what's keeping the batt cover stuck. My guess would be an old battery leaked out and corroded the whole chamber. You can clean that up but don't taste it no matter how tempting the green stuff is.

 

[Sadanand]

Can someone please help with any info on the below... please 🙂

a) My battery is consumed in no time. Obviously there is a leak. Where could that be?

b) The film did not rewind properly back into the canister. When I was rewinding I could feel something is not right there. It was a kind of loose feel with the result that the initial frames were lost. Again, where to look for?

As always, appreciate any inputs... TIA

 

[ErnestoJL]

I don´t know if you have any knowledge in electronics, but I suggest you to check for Roger Provins from the UK, whose website is filled with info about the electronics inside YE35 series. He placed several schematics and remarked the current paths in the circuit, depending on which stage of the shutter button position, explaining quite well how it works. If you need anymore help about this matters, just PM me.
Rewinding film shouldn´t be something so serious unless anything is broken, or film got loose from the spool. Check it with a piece of exposed film and a normal cassette as Pherdinand recommended! Good luck!!

 

[john neal]

Sadanand,
Have you checked the Pad of Death in your camera? This is the most likely reason for short battery life - if the pad has gone then the sliding switches inside the camera will be in the wrong position and could cause serious battery drain. The only way to tell is to take the top plate off, which you seem to be doing anyway.

The other possible cause could be a wire inside the camera that has become trapped and chafed through the insulation - do you know if this camera has been dismantled before? There are about 10 or 12 wires that snake around the rear of the lens inside the body - I have managed to trap one when rebuilding a GSN in the past and only found out because it snapped completely.

The questions above about the function of the warning lights is a good one - if these do not work correctly, it is more than likely the pad that is the problem. I suppose it is just possible that one of the electrical components has gone bad (such as the timing capacitor) but this should show up in terms of poor exposures, but you don't seem to have that problem. Do you get the characteristic Yashic "click" when you start to wind on to the next frame?

As to film rewind, the mechanism is fairly basic, providing that the rewind crank is securely screwed into the rewind spindle, there should be nothing to go wrong. Once you have pressed the rewind button on the baseplate to release the wind sprockets, just keep rewinding until the leader separates from the wind-on spool (you should hear this) then wind a few turns more so that the whole film is back in the cassette.

Regards
John