Dismantling the MinoltinaP is straight forward.

The top cover comes off when you unscrew the rewind knob and the shutter release housing. The latter requires a grip of some type but is a normal thread.

This reveals a fairly simply layout. I did not have to do much here as I checked the exposure meter and it was OK. The main task was to glue down the zone plate for the focus indicator.

The bottom plate is removed with two screws. But the flash lead is wired to it. It is advisable to unsolder this.

The first stage of getting the shutter out is to remove the front lens housing. This removed by loosening (not removing) the three small screws in the section surrounding the name ring. The complete front unit will lift off.

The position of the front lens element should be marked as the infinity focussing on reassembly will depend on lining things up.

The front element screws out.

The second lens element is removed by unscrewing the large brass ring that can now be seen. The lens element is fitted into this brass ring.

Then the fixing unit, that is held onto the face of the camera housing with three screws, has to be removed

Once these steps have been taken, you have to remove the brass holding ring that is behind the lens ring.

This was very tight and took some removing.

The photo shows it removed.

The aperture adjusting ring that is on the casing covering the shutter but is under the camera body, has to be removed. It takes some fiddling and manipulation. The key is that there is a small tab that has to be brought down to the bottom of the camera before you can win.

This tab is circled in the photo.

Note

The focussing is registered on the zone scale on top of the camera via a pin running through the top of the lens/shutter casing. This can easily fall out and disappear into regions unknown.

The shutter is available when all housing components have been removed.

The first photo shows it with its face cover in place and the second with it removed.

I flushed the shutter out with Shellite (what we call naptha)and did the usual load and fires until it sounded OK.

What appeared to be its main problem was that decayed foam from the shutter-to-body seal had gotten into the works.

Once you have cleaned up the shutter, you have to align the elements for it to work correctly.

I replaced the decayed seal with a ring of 4ply cotton, held in place with white PVC glue

Note

The black wire to the right of the picture is the flash connection.

The foam that supports the film cassette had decayed badly.

I replaced this with strips of film can ‘felt’. 

The edge light seals were also gone, so I used 4ply cotten, help in with white PVC, to replace them.