How does one free up the advance arm on a X700?

I have an x700 that the advance arm occassionally freezes in place.

My past option was to take it to the shop for the $80-$125 overhaul

to get the arm freed. I've done this twice in less than 5 years.

I'd rather not keep taking the camera in at that rate. There must

be a simple way to open and free this up but I don't know how. Is

this a simple procedure and if so how is it done?

You've got a lemon, with a defect in the film advance system. The reason it costs around $100 to do that repair, is that you need to take off all of the controls on top of the camera, and get the top plate of the body off to un-jam it. It's over an hour of a skilled technician's time, and frankly, it is not worth the effort, because:

 

You can pick up another perfectly nice, Excellent+ condition X-700 body on ebay for under $100. BTW, I'm selling an X-700 OUTFIT right now for $140, including the normal lens and a dedicated TTL flash unit that, by itself is worth $25 so that should give you an idea what they are worth. If I were you, I'd pick up a new X-700 body, or even cheaper, an X-570 body for less than the repair costs, and ditch your current body for parts on ebay (you might get $20-25 for a jammed body with all the electronics working properly).

I had a similar problem a while back, but on my XG-M. This has only happened once and the camera is 20 or so years old. I sent it to Garry's Camera for repair ($50) and it's been working perfectly since. However, you may very well have a lemon, and perhaps you should just buy another X-700, as was suggested. That's probably what I would do in your situation.

I don't know if they're similar internally- but occasionally my Pentax K1000 will do something funky like that- usually seems to be when it is advanced nearly, but not quite all the way. Anyway, sometimes, playing with the shutter release button and wind lever a bit will release it, if not, hit the rewind release, rewind it just a tad, then try it.

This worked for me and my old beater Minolta... your mileage may vary.. <p>

My advance arm simply freewheels once in a while. I carefully remove a quarter from my pocket, insert in the powerwinder slot and give it a turn till it advances. Everything is sunny for a few months again. :) <p>

Hope this helps.