Arri 2C upside down tachometer

[Gene Fojtik]

I just acquired a pl mount converted 2C that came with an upside down tachometer. Does anyone know if there is a special reason why it was inserted that way? I assume this happened during the conversion. Thanks.

[Simon Wyss]

An idiot must have had your camera in his hands. For luck, the tachometer can easily be inverted in its holding once the body is open. I think they should correct that for free if you point it out soberly.

 

All the best

[Tim Carroll]

Gene,

 

Yeah, somebody put it back together wrong. It probably still works okay, just a bit hard to read. If you have the camera serviced, a clean/lube/adjust (CLA) the technician will put it right. If you just acquired the camera, a CLA would be in order anyway.

 

Good luck, they're great cameras.

 

Best,

-Tim

[Gene Fojtik]

Yes, they are great cameras. I've owned a 2B for a little while and love it. I got this 2C for the Van Diemen conversion, high speed gate and video tap. The tachometer positioning was so odd that I thought it might have a special purpose because it would be strange for a tech to overlook something like that. However, it does work fine in spite of its peculiar orientation.

[John Sprung]

Yeah, it was put together wrong. Easy to fix, though.

 

Having a 2C, you should learn how to pop the gear cover off. You may need to do that if a mag rolls out and drops a chip down into the gears. A chip in the gears will stop an Arri dead. Once the cover's off, you just loosen two screws, pull the tach and put it back in right side up.

 

To pop the gear cover:

 

Remove the mag and motor. Inch the camera to where the shutter is in the middle of the open position, as much of it out of the bulge in the gear cover as possible. Then remove the inching knob. Loosen the four screws that hold the cover to the body, each one or two turns. Hold the body in your left hand, and bump the shutter bulge upward with your right. the cover should now be loose, but retained by the screws. Take the screws all the way out, and lift the cover out in a diretion parallel to the plane of the shutter. You want to be real careful of the shutter in this whole operation. Now you have access to the works, so take a look around, pick out any loose film chips, turn your tach right side up, and carefully put everything back together in the opposite order in which you took it apart.

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Hal Smith]

Maybe the previous owner had a need to rig the camera upside down and inverted the tach since it's easy to do. Another caveat about pulling the gear cover: It is very easy to lose that teeny tiny little screw in the inching knob. It took me an hour to find it when I let it get loose once.

[Gene Fojtik]

Thanks for the tips.