Had a Minolta X-700 shutter curtain jam on me yesterday

The customer said it just stopped firing halfway through a roll. When I opened it up, the second curtain was stuck about a third of the way across. In my experience, it's often the magnet that gets gummy. I cleaned the magnet and its contact plate with some isopropyl on a q-tip, and that did the trick. The whole fix took maybe 20 minutes once I had it apart. Has anyone found a better cleaning solution for those old Minolta magnets that lasts longer?

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aaronrobinson5mo ago

Try a tiny drop of lighter fluid on the magnet, it cuts the old grease better.

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elliot_king5mo ago

My old X-700 had the same magnet issue three times last year. It feels like everything built after 1990 is designed to fail, but these old cameras just get dirty. You fix one sticky part and they work for another decade. It's satisfying to solve a problem with a q-tip instead of a software update. Does that lighter fluid trick keep it running longer than the alcohol clean?

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