Konica C35 rangefinder Camera repair – light meter soldering manual

A few months ago I acquired this little Konica C35 rangefinder on a flea market for less than five Euros. It got many traces from intensive use but there were no signs of serious damage so I decided to take it home.

There still was a film in the camera, I will develop it some day. But unfortunately the light meter did not work. Who knows this camera is aware that there is no possibility to manually set aperture and shutter speed. So I had to repair the wiring of the battery compartment which included some soldering – which I never really did before.

The following pictures describe the process of resoldering the light meter and the replacement of the whole cable that leads from the battery compartment to the light meter located on top of the lens inside the lens barrel.

Konica c35 repair light meter 9 — At first just loosen the three screws on the bottom.

After this screw off the two screws that hold the battery compartment in place.

Probably the black cable is already loose. If the cable inside looks okay you can just solder it. If you are lucky the job is done now. Just replace the compartment and the bottom cover and check if the needle responds to the light. There is no need to transport the film advance crank, the needle responds also if the shutter is not cocked. — Probably the black cable is already loose. If the cable inside looks okay you can just solder it. If you are lucky the job is done now. Just replace the compartment and the bottom cover and check if the needle responds to the light.
There is no need to transport the film advance crank, the needle responds also if the shutter is not cocked.

First step: Take of the rewind knob. This is very easily done by grabbing the inner part that connects with the film spool and turning the rewind crank counterclockwise. — If you are not that lucky you have to get deeper into the insides since the cable that goes to the light sensor needs to be completely replaced. But no problem, it is really simple to get this done. First take of the rewind knob. This is very easily done by grabbing the inner part that connects with the film spool and turning the rewind crank counterclockwise.

The next step is to unfasten the little screw that was hidden under the rewind crank.

The next step is to loosen the film transport lever. The Screw that holds it in place can easily loosened with a rubber that is pressed on its surface and turned counterclockwise. Alternatively some tool like pliers or a pair of tweezers could be used but then there is the risk to scratch the screws surface. The picture shows all parts of the lever in the order in which they are put together. The bottom part again is screwed down, this can easily be detached owing pliers also there is not the risk to scratch it. — The next step is to loosen the film transport lever. The Screw that holds it in place can easily loosened with a rubber that is pressed on its surface and turned counterclockwise. Alternatively some tool like pliers or a pair of tweezers could be used but then there is the risk to scratch the screws surface (you can see how bad it was done on mine …).
The picture shows all parts of the lever in the order in which they are put together. The bottom part again is screwed down, this can easily be detached with pliers.

Here you can see how the bottom part of the advance lever gets loosened.

Konica c35 repair light meter 10 — Now the top case can be lifted. Take care for the cable that connects to the hot shoe and pc socket. Maybe this one also needs to be resoldered.

Konica c35 repair light meter 6 — Because we need to peal off the vinyl leatherette the self timer lever has to be taken off. The vinyl will afterwards stick again without adding new glue.

After peeling off the vinyl there are four black screws that hold the lens plate in place. Do not alter the lens settings after taking it off since it connects to a gear inside the camera and it gets difficult to find the proper setting again – believe me I did this mistake and it cots me half an hour to get everything even again. — After peeling off the vinyl there are four black screws that hold the lens plate in place. Do not alter the lens settings after taking it off since it connects to a gear inside the camera and it gets difficult to find the proper setting again – believe me I did this mistake and it cost me half an hour to get everything even again.

The lens plate is also connected with two cables. On of these gets replaced, the other one goes to the meter needle in the viewfinder. Also you can see the small pin. Take it out before it falls out and gets lost. When you replace it the sharpened side goes into the plate first.

Now the ring from the top of the lens has to be unscrewed. I did it with tough bend tweezers – better is a spanner tool.

Here you can see the loose ring that holds the top part of the lens assembly in place.

Konica c35 repair light meter 1 — As you see the cable already came off. Just replace it reassemble everything (this is easy, there is no hidden difficulty when doing so).
Good luck and good fun with this little shooter.

Some useful links:

Full color user manual from butkus
Matt Dentons review of the Konica C35. His description of the repair of his Konica C35 automatic also helped me to get the job done.
Janus Kohl Anderson also has some pictures that describe the disassembly and helped me a lot too.
peter rabbit shows a tough strip down of his Konica C35 in his flickr stream.
ebay search for

If this article was helpful or if you have any suggestions I would be very grateful if you just leave a short reply.

Konica C35 rangefinder Camera repair – light meter soldering manual

1 Gedanke zu „Konica C35 rangefinder Camera repair – light meter soldering manual“

Schreibe einen Kommentar Antworten abbrechen