Why does nobody talk about shutter drag on old Pentax Spotmatics?

I was cleaning a Spotmatic SP1000 last night and noticed the shutter speeds were all off by almost a full stop at 1/1000. Looked it up on a vintage camera forum and found out the grease hardens in the shutter mechanism after like 20 years, causing drag that slows the curtains. Has anyone else run into this with older Pentax bodies and found a good way to relube without taking the whole thing apart?

2 comments

2 Comments

hill.david14d ago

Oh man, you hit on something that drives me crazy about those old Spotmatics. That shutter drag issue is real, and it's annoying because nobody warns you about it when you pick one up at a thrift store for cheap. The grease just turns into a sticky glue after a couple decades, and those cloth curtains start dragging like they're wading through mud. I've seen a lot of folks just accept the slower speeds and shoot around it, but that's not really a fix. Taking the whole thing apart is a nightmare, there's like a million tiny screws and springs in there. What I've had luck with is carefully dripping a tiny bit of lighter fluid into the shutter mechanism where the gears are, then working the shutter a bunch of times to loosen up the old grease. It's not perfect but it buys you a few more years before the full CLA is needed.

gavin_knight3914d ago

Yeah I read somewhere that naphtha based lighter fluid works best for this because it evaporates clean and doesn't leave residue like other solvents would.