jammed OM1

FrankS

FrankS

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I bought a black Olympus OM1 from CL today. It is jammed. The film advance lever acts like the camera is cocked and ready to fire, but nothing happens when the shutter release button is pressed.

The film rewind release does not free things up, I tried using a cable release to no avail, tried moving the film sprocket spool, tried lifting the mirror which I can, mirror lock up lever works correctly. Any ideas, maybe under the bottom plate?

The good news is that it only cost $20, and came with a Sekonic Studio Deluxe II light meter with lumisphere, lumidisc, lumigrid, and manual; and a Kiron 28-85 zoom.
 
Three options.... things.....

Three options.... things.....

1) Probably worth CLA considering what you paid
2) I'd probably put it in the parts bin and use the black parts to convert a working OM-1 to black.
3) The Kiron lens, if in good shape is probably worth 5 times what you paid, or worth the value of the camera after a CLA. Kiron was one of the best of all the suppliers of Vivitar Series I and great lenses under their own name. Vivitar is a marketing company and never made their own lenses. Just on the Vivitar Series one variants, there were probably 8-10 different mfrs. Kiron was at the top of the list for most models.
 
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Frank, what Chippy said; my OM bodied have died one by one over the past few years but not to that particular jam he’s repaired the lock-up for a few pounds the odd time it happened, (the killer is the sticky mirror one, my tech chap says that’s too expensive to repair)

I’ve never been sure what causes the jam, it seems to be if I’m rushing, it just stops and I can’t work out exactly what I did, it’s thankfully very rare

It’s a good deal anyway it costs me £20 every time I lose those discs for the Sekonic
 
Sometimes the mirror cocking arm becomes unlatched. That leaves shutter cocked, mirror uncocked. The action of the mirror going up is what fires the shutter curtains. You can re latch the mirror, but what caused it to unlatch by itself in the first place? John
 
PS, you can convert a chrome OM-1 to black, the hard part (and what gives it away as not a real black body) is the remaining chrome sync switch lever and chrome mirror lock up lever. John
 
Sometimes the mirror cocking arm becomes unlatched. That leaves shutter cocked, mirror uncocked. The action of the mirror going up is what fires the shutter curtains. You can re latch the mirror, but what caused it to unlatch by itself in the first place? John
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Yep, that sounds like what killed mine in the end, I gave up on the two MD models

Howevere I intend to continue maintaining the very first one I bought when they first came out in 1973 or 4
 
chippy said:
sometimes they are easy to un-jam...take the bottom off and there is a lever with a catch/hook on the end that gets stuck on the wrong side of its correct position, once flipped back into its correct place it can work fine again (service is still advised though, of course)...not sure if that description helps much, if there is a picture of the open bottom around anywhere i could probably point out the lever for you though..very easy to get going again
Click to expand...

My old black om1 did the same thing after I got it and this fix worked. What a great deal on that camera Frank!
 
Thanks! I already have 2 working black OM1's and other cameras with higher priority requiring repair/cla, so this one I'll try to fix myself and then put it in the parts bin as Chippy suggests. I'll post a pic of the camera bottom without cover later so someone can point me in the right direction for where to look for a misplaced part.
 
YEAH! I just unjammed this OM1. :)

I opened the bottom of the jammed camera and the bottom of a working OM1, and looked for the difference. I moved a little lever which was spring loaded to where the same lever was on the working camera. This seemed to tension the shutter, and it worked! Happy face!
 
Correct me if I'm wrong Frank but isn't this the one hundred and eleventh Oly you've bought since this time last year? :eek:

Just can't resist a bargain can you? :D
 
No, no, Keith! This was the ninth OM camera I've bought. But one was returned to an ebay seller, and 2 were given to the local high school photography program, leaving me with 6. A good deal is hard to turn down. Would you walk away from a black OM1 (albeit jammed at the time) and a Sekonic Studio Deluxe meter, for $20?
Not that I need it, but tomorrow I'm looking at a "like new" Canon FTb with 50f1.4 lens for $40.
 
FrankS said:
No, no, Keith! This was the ninth OM camera I've bought. But one was returned to an ebay seller, and 2 were given to the local high school photography program, leaving me with 6. A good deal is hard to turn down. Would you walk away from a black OM1 (albeit jammed at the time) and a Sekonic Studio Deluxe meter, for $20?
Not that I need it, but tomorrow I'm looking at a "like new" Canon FTb with 50f1.4 lens for $40.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't walk away from either the camera or the meter for that price... and you got a great lens to boot?

I haven't looked lately, but the last time I did, the meters alone sold for over $100.00. That whole line really keeps its value. I have the Sekonic L28c2 and love it! I guess others do too.
 
Thanks for that affirmation, oftheherd! Apparently the Kiron 28 to 85 lens is a good one, but I like using smaller primes instead. For me, this heavy and relatively large zoom lens spoils the feel of a camera.
 
chippy said:
sometimes they are easy to un-jam...take the bottom off and there is a lever with a catch/hook on the end that gets stuck on the wrong side of its correct position, once flipped back into its correct place it can work fine again (service is still advised though, of course)...not sure if that description helps much, if there is a picture of the open bottom around anywhere i could probably point out the lever for you though..very easy to get going again
Click to expand...

Got the same problem. It started when I foolishly thought that the motordrive cover is the battery cover. Now I cannot put the motordrive cover back and the advance is stuck in the middle.

Is the bottom that you mean is the motordrive cover?

Edit: After reading the service manual, just realize that you meant the bottom plate. Guess I will take the camera to my friend who's handy with old camera.
 
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Hi,

The rewind lever on my OM2n has been jammed for about a week until an hour ago after reading this thread. I opened up the bottom and fiddled around a little and after moving a lever the shutter fired and now it is working again! Thanks for the advice folks.
 
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