Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: $20 Pentax ME Super

This is topic $20 Pentax ME Super in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 04-11-2010, 11:20 PM:

I was driving home from the store yesterday when I stopped at a roadside rummage sale and found a whole bunch of camera gear. I found an old Pentax ME-Super.

The viewfinder was clear. The lens was clean. No scratches. No fungus. I noticed that the lens was a 50mm f-1.7 SMC-Pentax. The shutter didn't fire but, besides that, everything else was clean.

The guy was asking $20.00 for it. I figured, even if the camera didn't work the lens, by itself, was worth as much as $100.00. At that price, I could toss the camera out and have myself a $20 lens.
(I've seen that lens sell on eBay for $50 to $100.)

Just for shits and giggles, I put new batteries in it and everything seemed to work! The meter works. All the buttons operate. The shutter operates correctly except for one small problem: About 50% of the time, the shutter doesn't fire correctly.

If you wind the advance lever, the film will move and the shutter will cock but the shutter release button doesn't work. If you advance the lever again, the film will still move and, if you jiggle the lever just right you can get it to work.

I ran the camera through all of its settings and shot it at every shutter setting about 10 times each. It's gotten to the point where the shutter will cock and fire properly about 90% of the time.

I imagine the mechanism has gotten stiff from sitting idle for many years. I wonder if a little dusting and a judicious drop of oil in the right place might solve this problem.

I figure, if I can get it to work reliably enough to run a couple of rolls of film through it I might decide to actually use the camera. If I decide that I like it, I will send it in for CLA but I'd like to try it out before I spend the money on a camera I end up not liking.

The way I figure I've got nothing left to lose. If I can fix it I've got a camera I can use as a backup or to shoot a second type of film while I'm out in the field. If I can't fix it, I haven't lost anything.

The worst that can happen is that I end up with an f-1.7 lens that I only paid $20.00 for.

Does anybody have any ideas?