Thanks Don! Encyclopedia Organica to the rescue! (again)
That retainer took a considerable amount of... Ahem.... Convincing (in the form of a small hammer hitting a large nail poked in to the now-non-existent slots as well as a lot of WD40) but I got it off. And... Voila! Just dirty terminals (or so I thought) and I had the cover back on it twenty minutes. Unfortunately I seemed to have overlooked something because though the viewfinder exposure display now works reliably (for the first time in months) the shutter still doesn't fire reliably. I guess it'll be back to the work bench.
Thanks again for all your help, Francis Don Sanderson wrote:
Manual? What manual? ;-) Actually, my manual is in my head. That retainer IS what's holding the cover on. It's right hand thread, usually easy to remove, however yours looks like a very tiny drop of penetrating oil might help. I use a spanner wrench designed for these but a needle nose or snap ring plier will work if it fits in the slots firmly. Don
