Manfrotto 410 Head: Gear-Jammed.

[Keith Tapscott.]

One of the gears on my Manfrotto 410 head has seized solid. I can move the smaller knob which does the fine adjustment, but the larger quick-action knob seems to be seized-up real tight and I cant budge it.
Any ideas how to fix it?

[epavelin]

If you carefully peel off the round stickers on the head, there are screws behind them which allow you to dismantle the head. I think they require an allen key, if my memory serves me correctly. The mechanism inside is very simple.

A word of warning though. When I attempted to fix my own head (it had got very stiff) there ended up being play in the gears after I put it back together - probably through lack of grease. I ended up sending it to Manfrotto UK for servicing, which cost about £35, but it came back as good as new.

Ed.

[Keith Tapscott.]

I managed to free it at last. It's working fine again now. Thanks for the reply.

[lxdude]

I managed to free it at last. It's working fine again now. Thanks for the reply.

What do you think happened? Did it jam at the end of travel, or just freeze up? I'm considering getting one, and am curious about reliability.

[Keith Tapscott.]

What do you think happened? Did it jam at the end of travel, or just freeze up? I'm considering getting one, and am curious about reliability.

I'm not sure how it happened, but a very hard twist with a towel wrapped around it did the business.
It's working as new again at the moment.