Hello friends,

today I changed an infamous Pad of Death in my Yashica 35 Electro GSN - oh, what a nightmare! The camera is quite easy in repair, but the original material of the pad almost made me to cry - why on earth did they choose such a thing for such an important piece? My pad was almost like a piece of the soviet household soap, brown and gooey - when I tried to press it with a screwdriver's blade, it just smudged :) I put there a piece of 3 mm thick neoprene foam from a camera seal kit, and it works perfectly now - though I had some problems with B speed and double exposure lock, but it was easy to find and fix. Yashica Guy recommends 2 mm pad, but I checked the contacts' positions and added some place for compression. Now my Yashica works just like new. I am yet to explore its miracles :)

Cheers,
Zhenya

Hello Zhenya!

I have replaced the pad on several Electros. I used a rubber gasket sheet (of the correct thickness) from my local hardware store.

The pad is a pain to replace and I know what you mean about the original material --- it looks like it is turning back to a petroleum product....

The Electro I use is a black GT model. I added a yashica guy battery adapter and a red lizardskin covering from cameraleather.com -- it looks great..

I think you will enjoy the camera, it has a very sharp lens and some great features.

Regards,
John

Have fun with the Yashica. I own and use a GSN as well--perhaps the sharpest lens I own.

Sean

Seems all of the cameras of this type from that era had the same gummy seal problems. I had to replace the seals in my Canonet QL 17 III. In addition I tool off the top plate and cleaned the viewfinder. I thought it was clear until I cleaned it and saw the difference. From what I gather most of these cameras had the same dirty viewfinders.

Thank you, friends, for your nice words about Yashica - I repaired it well, and it works just fine. It will never leave my bag, so I can use it as an instant medecine :) The exposure meter circuitry, though, is strange - probably it's due to age, but it doesn't do really long exposures with 1.7 aperture, only abut 3 sec. - though they're not something I need really this much :) The transistors inside have rights to get old too, really. I can also recommend as a good pad replacement material a piece of small medical vial rubber cap. It's usually made of a very high quality nitrile rubber, resistant to chemicals and autoclaving. Its elasticity catches well the secondary release rod, and it is very difficult to compress, so changing the contacts alignment. Also it's easy to cut out 2 mm piece from this cap, and it can be glued securely to the lever. I used a grey-coloured cap from some kind of antibiotic.

Cheers,
Zhenya