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This camera is a hand-me-down from my dad which I previously thought was broken until I put a battery from my AT-1 in and it fired just fine (turns out 3 or 4 LR44's I tried in 2017 were all junk).

However, despite it cocking fine it seems to have problem with the cocking arm not catching the whole time. When you cock the shutter it only moves the shutter, advances the film, cocks the mechanism, etc. at the very end of the travel of the cocking lever. So I need to pump it from 3/4 of the way to the full end of travel in order for the shutter and cocking lever to be reset and then it's ready to fire.

I've yet to put film into it because I'm not sure if I want to waste a roll on this if cocking it 360+ times will harm the camera.

Is this a common problem with the AE1? It's hard to research because (like was also the problem for me a few years back) the cocking arm being stuck and won't go beyond the first quarter of travel seems to be all what comes up when you look up AE-1 cocking arm problems. Hopefully it's something cleaning and lubricating can fix without needing to disassemble the cocking arm mechanism and linkages.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Okay I fixed it, I disassembled the shutter cocking lever and found a brass looking cam disc which translates the motion from the crank arm to the mechanism inside the camera. It had broken at a point where two thin pieces of metal met. Because I really had nothing to lose I put it in a vice to close the gap where it had broke and I heated fluxed and soldered it and now it works just fine. If you can get a replacement part I'd go that route as I don't know how long this setup will last (soldering brass) but a few rolls of film in and it's still working fine! \$\endgroup\$
    – Mike
    Commented Jan 23, 2023 at 15:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ Please post your comment as an answer (and you can then accept it, gaining a small number fake Internet points); Stack Exchange explicitly encourages self-answered questions. Thanks! \$\endgroup\$
    – Philip Kendall ♦
    Commented Jan 24, 2023 at 9:17

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