Yashica lynx: Broken aperture?

[frydham]

Hello all, I'm new to the forums here, and I recently bought a Yashica rangefinder on ebay. I'm newbie when it comes to rangefinders, but it seemed to be in working condition. Except one thing... The aperture ring would get stuck at 2.8. It went pretty smoothly from f/22 - f/2.8, but would get stuck before getting to 1.8. Well, I decided it just needed a little push, and forced it to open... Bad idea. I had freed up the aperture but something happened to the shutter. Sometimes when it would fire, it would just stay open, sometimes nothing happened. After fiddling with for a little while, the shutter seems to be working again, but now I can see there something wrong with aperture blades. Does anyone know what happened to this, and how to fix it? I'm in way over my head with this thing.

Thanks!

 

[frydham]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/josiahg1801/5817324828/in/photostream

 

[Uglee]

Looks like you have broken the guide rivet off the aperture blade. Taking the shutter apart to replace a blade is the most difficult repair on a Lynx, and you will also need a donor camera for parts. It would be best to look for another Lynx, they are still very inexpensive. I have had this same problem with two out of four of these cameras. They are great cameras and worth looking for a good one.