FM2n Renaissance

RIP my FM2n
Originally uploaded by Californian Em

Before I went to bed last night, I thought of my FM2 that had been serving me very well for more than ten years. It's the one that my mother gave me as a reward for getting to the university in 1990. It had been travelled the world with me since then, accompanying everywhere I go and never let me down.
Here came to the end on November 2005 when I visit Aunt Jerd in Fresno. I took it for our group photo and not very well attached it to the tripod. It fell down instandly from the tripod and knocked the ground (concrete pavement of course) The sound of impact almost stop my heart. However It still functioned very well besides film rewided knob came out of place.
I used it from time to time since then that was not very frequent as before due to number of cameras in my collection and the Digital SLRs. But I also took it out from time to time. I noticed that something went wrong with the rewinding knob and I had to try harder to open its back.
Finally the day had come. Ming visited us in LA and we took her to the Runyon Canyon. I finished my last roll of film and could not open the camera's back to unload the film. I pulled the knob harder and the back opened. But the worse came to worse when the rewinding knob came out too. My camera rewinding knob damaged when it hit the ground. Interal friction got worse everytime I open the back as it cracked due to my last attempt to open it. I thought it's gone forever but it's not..
I took it out of the closet last night and figuered out how I could reattach the rewinding knob back to the camera's base plate. It could not be possible because I would need to remove its front cover and shutter speed knob and winding mechanism that I really didn't want to do. So I took a look at rewinding knob and found a tiny locking mechanism at the base core of rewinding knob. This one would lock rewinding spool when the camera back is in locked position. Once the lock mechanism is broken, it prevented unlock position eventhough it has been unlocked properly. So I decided to remove it and put the knob back in its place. Voila.... the knob move freely and lot more easier to unlock the camera back. That works.
So my FM2 is back to life... I am very happy :) really...