What makes a IIIG difficult to repair?

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Robert Lai

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I've been waiting a few months for Don Goldberg to return my IIIG, IIF and a few lenses from getting their mass collimation. I've wanted the lenses to focus properly wide open and up close with both cameras. In the meantime, I started to miss having a LTM camera around to use with my remaining lenses, so I picked up a another IIIG. This one is in fairly good shape, but it has a bit of haze in the finder. There are a few other nit-picks that I'd like corrected.

I asked another repair person if he could work on a IIIG, but he wrote back that IIIGs are difficult repairs, and he won't work on them. He'll fix thread mounts up to the Fs, (as well as Leica M series), but not the IIIG.

I asked a 3rd person about fixing a IIIG, and he again said that the IIIG was a difficult design to repair. It would take him a long time, and he'd have to get parts from DAG!

In that case, I'll just have to wait for Don!

Can anyone enlighten me as to what exactly makes the IIIG so much more difficult to repair than the other LTM or M series cameras?
 
No, second repairman was not Youxin. I find Youxin hard to get a hold of, as he's in China much of the time.

I thought that perhaps the framelines was an issue, but I'm sure the M3 has a far more complex finder system.

To be honest, I didn't have a great experience with Youxin. The reason my IIF is with DAG is that the shutter is tapering at 1/1000. Youxin had adjusted the shutter. After I sent the IIF to Youxin to have the finder cleaned, I had to have DAG put a new beamsplitter in it. Youxin returned my RF/VF eyepiece cracked from over-tightening the mounting screws. After that I've been using DAG for everything.
 
From a limited personal experience, I would say that the extra parts in the IIIg that require precise replacement in the reassembly after dismantling makes this camera more difficult to repair than a IIIc or IIIf black dial. It is perhaps for the same reason too that some repair people charge more for repairing a IIIf RD ST than a plain jane IIIf.

The selftimer is very difficult to "time" or synch with the shutter release parts. The part which links the timer to the must be in a precise position relative to the shutter release shaft, otherwise the tiimer won't work or else it can jam the release. Resetting it properly can be difficult since this can require a lot of trial and error; and each trial almost always requires the bottom plate of the shutter crate to be removed at least partially.

The selftimer itself has about 20 (can't recall now) parts alone which need to be removed before the body shell can be removed from the crate.

The IIIg also used a peculiar mechanism to achieve 'automatic' flash synchronisation. Instead of the usual round tracked adjustable switch used in the IIIf, a set of black tiny blades (9 or them?) held with spring wire is used. These parts are easy to displace and quite hard to replace properly.

My IIIg is still on queue for repair, and I'm still thinking when to work on it. The thought of the complex mechanism (compared to the III or IIIc) makes me delay the work on it over and over.
 
Guys please go easy on the repair people whose names you mentioned. All of them are good, and all of them can goof. Not their fault really, in the sense that they did it on purpose. Old cameras can develop a lot of defects, and the right cure can sometimes be missed. It is also fairly easy to miss some hidden defect which may manifest only after the repair has been done.

Limited times will give limited testing opportunities- one sure way to really see if the camera is 100% fixed is to let the repairman keep it for some time and fully test it. Not only to see if all the defects are gone, but also to see if these would come back. But this is not realistic- you'd want your cameras back as soon as possible, and the repairists need to give their time and efforts on the other cameras sent to them for repair.
 
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ZorkiKat, thanks for your comment above. I've been grating my nerves the last two weeks waiting for Sherry Krauter to send me back the M5 I sent her in late September... and now you got me thinking that if she's taking her time, it's because she wants to deliver a well repaired camera in order to never see it again.

I guess every time I get impatient again, I have to remind myself of what you wrote.

Thanks! I can sleep better now! 🙂
 
Another issue with repairing iiigs is their unique rangefinder/viewfinder setup. One of the reasons it took Sherry Krauter so long to repair mine is that my camera needed a replacement frameline mask--very hard to find. I was fortunate enough to find one via Don Goldberg (note how those names keep popping up again?)

Now that it's done, it's a beautiful piece of machinery--kinda like a fine old MG sports car...
 
😉Digitalintrigue, you speak blasphemy! A Leica go out of tune regularly?!? NEVER!!!

What I meant is that a Leica IIIg is a finely crafted piece of classic machinery--and one that makes you do all the work. Kinda like how you have to do all your own clutching and shifting in one of those old sports cars. Sometimes that's FUN (at least from my viewpoint), rather than having the camera do all the work with you just along for the ride, so to speak...
 
ZorkiKat said:
Guys please go easy on the repair people whose names you mentioned. All of them are good, and all of them can goof. Not their fault really, in the sense that they did it on purpose. Old cameras can develop a lot of defects, and the right cure can sometimes be missed. It is also fairly easy to miss some hidden defect which may manifest only after the repair has been done.

Limited times will give limited testing opportunities- one sure way to really see if the camera is 100% fixed is to let the repairman keep it for some time and fully test it. Not only to see if all the defects are gone, but also to see if these would come back. But this is not realistic- you'd want your cameras back as soon as possible, and the repairists need to give their time and efforts on the other cameras sent to them for repair.
Click to expand...

I agree 100% that one should not rush the tech but when you have waited 3 months & sometimes longer AND there is still a glaring issue, then that is a problem! That happened to me recently and its hard to take.
 
Digitalintrigue: Deal. Maybe one of those cool old "bathtub" Porsches?

ray*j*gun: understand how you feel. But I know those few repairpeople who do fix old Leicas are way, way busy, which is why there's often a very long lead time between sending the item in and getting it back. (Like I said, I waited a year before I got my iiig back from Sherry Krauter. But it was worth it.)

And (are you listening, digitalintrigue?) I think the reason they're so busy is not that Leicas are high-maintainence, but let's face it, a lot of these cameras are suffering from years of neglect and disuse, and it takes a lot of work to get them back into fighting shape...
 
^^And, we recently saw a thread in wich repairmen and -women were quoted that they busier than ever before.

I guess a lot of people have picked up a film camera since the digital RF's got their attention but not their wallets... Here in The Netherlands I saw that happening when the Nikon D70 caught on, film Nikons started commanding higher prices (as well as the manual lenses!) and since then the price difference between older Nikon and Canon gear has all but gone.
 
Millions of Leicas have been made and thousands of them are still about but I don't think it an exaggeration to say that hundreds or thousands of them need a repair or two - especially the old ones.

Us old ones on the forum can recite the names of all the repair people and probably count them all on our fingers. So repair delays shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Nor should the time taken to get spare parts for something made any time from the 1920's onwards. And time spent on the phone chasing after parts will delay everything waiting on the work bench.

Just my 2d worth.

Regards, David
 
Paul Luscher said:
Digitalintrigue: Deal. Maybe one of those cool old "bathtub" Porsches?
Click to expand...

Works for me. 🙂

And (are you listening, digitalintrigue?) I think the reason they're so busy is not that Leicas are high-maintainence, but let's face it, a lot of these cameras are suffering from years of neglect and disuse, and it takes a lot of work to get them back into fighting shape...
Click to expand...

Well of course. I never meant to imply that Leicas are unreliable. MGs certainly are, which is why I suggested Porsche for that analogy. 🙂

Almost every older Leica (speaking primarily of Barnacks) I come across needs work, simply because they have not been used regularly or recently. And some need work because they have been abused. But the vast majority are restorable to perfect working order...and ready for many more years of service.

There are plenty of Leica repair people out there; there are only a handful that get recommended on forums like RFF however. As a result, those handful are nearly always booked...
 
Yes, in my time, I have Leicas so brutally abused by their former owners that they should have been brought up on charges of criminal neglect...😱
 
You know Leica in Germany still services some of these cameras. They have my IIIf RD right now. I would think that if they still service the IIIf, they might still service the IIIg.

Just a thought.

Best,
-Tim
 
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