TIL a seized helicoil took me 4 hours to sort out on a Nikon FE2

I was fixing a Nikon FE2 where the film advance lever was stuck. Turned out a previous repair person had put a helicoil in the winding mechanism mount, and it had seized up with old dried grease. Took me 4 hours just to carefully drill it out without messing up the aluminum threads underneath. Anyone else run into a botched helicoil job that took way longer than it should have?

2 comments

2 Comments

river_scott23d ago

Oh man, "carefully drill it out" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I had a similar nightmare on a Minolta XD11 where somebody helicoiled the shutter speed dial mount and it locked up tighter than a jar lid my grandma glued shut. Spent a solid three hours with a dental pick and a tiny drill bit trying not to cry every time the bit slipped. Ended up having to tap new threads and use a different sized screw just to get it working again. That feeling when you finally break through the seized crap and the part moves freely is pure gold though, even if your back hurts from leaning over the bench for four hours.

tyler17623d ago

Ha, I remember reading about that exact camera on a repair forum years ago where a guy split his thumb open on a helicoil shard! @river_scott you're braver than me for sticking with it that long, I probably would've chucked the whole thing across the room after the first hour.