Hcompton79
Established
After a few years of good service, the frame counter spring in my Kodak Retina IIa (type 016) died. Disassembly of the winding lever showed that the small spring steel arm of the part broke off at its transition point where it bends to engage the frame counter ratchet.
Not wanting to seek out a parts camera and hope the frame counter spring was good, I opted to try repairing the existing part.
Here's the piece of the spring that broke off alongside my source of material for fabricating a repair. The dull coping saw blade is made of spring steel. I filed the teeth off and reduced the thickness to 0.008" to match the original.
A small length was cut off and bent at about 45 degrees. I then soldered this to the inside of the remaining projection on the frame counter spring.
This ended up working quite well. I even eyeballed the dimensions close enough that I didn't have to do any filing of the finished part to get the finger to engage the ratchet properly. When reassembled it worked as good as a factory new part. I figured I'd post this here as this is a known issue with the Retina IIa, and this gives another option versus finding a replacement.
Not wanting to seek out a parts camera and hope the frame counter spring was good, I opted to try repairing the existing part.
Here's the piece of the spring that broke off alongside my source of material for fabricating a repair. The dull coping saw blade is made of spring steel. I filed the teeth off and reduced the thickness to 0.008" to match the original.
A small length was cut off and bent at about 45 degrees. I then soldered this to the inside of the remaining projection on the frame counter spring.
This ended up working quite well. I even eyeballed the dimensions close enough that I didn't have to do any filing of the finished part to get the finger to engage the ratchet properly. When reassembled it worked as good as a factory new part. I figured I'd post this here as this is a known issue with the Retina IIa, and this gives another option versus finding a replacement.
Thankyou for posting this. I've been lucky that none of my IIa counter springs have broken. I mailed a spare to Roger Hicks years ago when he posted that his broke. The IIa advance "stack" is "non-trivial" to get back together. I tape mine together when popping the top on a IIa. I learned to hold the "paw" back using dental floss when placing on the camera.
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
I managed to reassemble one of these -- "nontrivial" would be a euphemism. Even now I find I have to push the wind lever all the way to the stop to make sure the counter advances. Probably I could improve it, but life's too short to try this again.
There are (at least) two versions of the IIa lever wind top plate. The mechanism for advancing the film counter differs between the two. I encountered this over 15 years ago- was not hard when holding the two in hand.
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
I know that bad things happen if you try to turn the frame counter in the wrong direction to reset it --much like what the OP experienced. The Retina cocking rack is another fragile piece, easy to strip. But if you have a nice working Retina, they're quite good. The lenses are splendid.
Replacing the cocking rack is not easy either! I did it for a Retina IIC.
I have two Knob wind Retina II cameras, one with the Ektar 47/2. Reverse-threaded Knobs on the Wind Side- aside from that, easier to work on.
I have two Knob wind Retina II cameras, one with the Ektar 47/2. Reverse-threaded Knobs on the Wind Side- aside from that, easier to work on.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Watching Chris Sherlock's rebuilds of the Kodak Retina cameras on YouTube, it seems that (presuming the cocking rack is in good condition, and the driving/engaging gears are in good condition) the fussiness of assembling the cocking rack comes down to how much clearance there needs to be in the assembly to make it work smoothly and not bind without being too sloppy a fit for good engagement and reliable action. He makes it look easy, albeit he is a master camera technician and specialist on the Retinas... 
G
G
The tricky part with getting the rack put back into place is getting on just the right spot on the gear that cocks the shutter. If it is not exactly in phase on the right Tooth of the gear- the shutter will not cock correctly with respect to advancing the frame. You need to manually move the gear of the shutter, and place the rack in position and tighten it down.