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camz · Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Southern CA

Does anyone have a source for repair manuals for Ilex shutters? My No. 4 Universal is quite sluggish, and I need to clean it up.

Rangemaster · Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 10:48 pm Post subject:

The Ilex shutters are actually pretty easy to CLA, there are a couple of screws to take off in the front and then you can remove the aperture scales and rings, the shutter will only go back together one way as everything is keyed to fit only one way, once you have it open you will most likly need to clean the pivot points and then apply a light lubricant, out of all of the shutters I have CLA's the Ilex's are one of the easiest. For cleaning, I use a small diameter needle injector to apply a non caustic solvent and they use another needle injector to apply lub, Like I say, it is a pretty straight forward operation on these shutters, I try not to get solvent on the shutter blades, alot of the Ilex shutters have plastic blades that could be damaged.

I have never seen an actual Ilex shutter repair manual, but if you would still like to aquire one, I would recommend checking with S.K. Grimes, http://www.skgrimes.com

Good Luck.

Dave Parker

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Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2146 Location: New Jersey

camz · Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Southern CA

Thanks, Dave. Any suggestions for a solvent?

45PSS · Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 5:06 am Post subject:

I'll jump in with, Plain 'ol rubbing alcohol or electrical contact cleaner. Both work fine.
Charles

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Rangemaster · Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 6:21 pm Post subject:

camz · Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Southern CA

Thanks, everyone!
This was a fairly straitforward cla, and I did use isopropyl alcohol as the cleaner. It does help to make sketches and notes as you disassemble the shutter. I also got a pair of S. K. Grimes' lens wrenches, and cleaned up the lens elements as well.

David A. Goldfarb · Joined: 03 Sep 2004 Posts: 142 Location: New York City

Here's an excellent site with instructions for servicing various old cameras and shutters. I've CLA'd a few Ilex and Synchro-Compur shutters so far, starting from instructions on this site--

http://daniel.mitchell.name/cameras/index.html

I clean with naphtha and on the Ilex shutters, I find a little light oil on the retard mechanism that controls the slow speeds and some heavy lith grease in the channels on the speed setting cam make everything run more smoothly.