www.MG42.us

As part of a short term project I removed one of the legs of an MG3 AA tripod. Turns out I didn't really need to do that, but now I need to put it back together and am having some difficulty with the coiled spring.

The tripod locks open via spring tension on a locking assembly (don't know the proper term). The coil spring has two fingers, one at each end of the wrapped coil, which go into corresponding holes in the locking piece and tripod body. The locking piece has non-concentric cylinders that provide a sort of camming action, which can only go into the leg holes and tripod body in one way.

Problem is, the coiled spring has to be wound 1/2 turn to go into the mating holes to provide the required spring tension, and I can't figure out how to make that 1/2 turn before installing the locking piece. Is there some sort of special tool to let me wind the spring enough before inserting it into the two holes, or a trick perhaps?

I do plan to order John's tripod booklet from GermanManuals.com, but in the mean time I figured someone here would already have the answer.

Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, so here's a picture of the parts as disassembled. You can see the fingers on the coiled spring, the hole in the tripod body and the off-center camming cylinders on the locking piece. The coil spring fits inside the cup on the locking piece.

Thanks,

Bryan

Assemble it until you can get the nut on by maybe two threads. Put the leg fully upward to decrease the amount of tension needed to get it to line up. Then get the spring in the correct locations and push the cammed pin into the hole. Tighten the nut.

Hope that makes sense. Assembly of this part is covered in the manual on page 37.

John,

yes, that makes sense. I'll give it a go. I've also ordered a copy of the AA tripod manual.

Gotta love this place.

Bryan

That procedure worked.

To push the spring finger into proper position, I used a split end screwdriver that I had previously made to remove the slotted nuts on SG84/98 grips. Once the pin was lined up with the hole I tapped the lock assembly down into place, then secured the locking nut.

Many thanks. Now the tripod will be secure enough to support a semi-auto Russian 1910 Maxim MG at a local IWLA event this Saturday.

Bryan

Your manual is in the mail, but I'm glad you got it together in time to use it.

JBaum wrote:Your manual is in the mail, but I'm glad you got it together in time to use it.

Here's how it looked at the show-and-tell. Frankly, however, I got more questions about my inert Bouncing Betty (SMi-35).