"Art" wrote in message
news:ZFldc.224743$Cb.1958710@attbi_s51...
In my father's estate are a bunch of 8mm films. I have a non-operating
Kodak M77 Instamatic projector.

Has anyone ever taken one of these apart? I need to get to the back where
the drive belt is and I will be darned if I can figure out how to open it.
All I can find on-line is places to spend big $ to buy manuals.

Any help or copies of a manual would be appreciated.

You may want to lurk around the ending auctions on ebay and see if you
can snag a cheap GAF, Wards, Sears, etc. projector. Bell & Howell or
Argus is a step up, but you could get lucky. Some of them do go cheaply.
(But watch out for shipping, $20 and up isn't unusual. Look for auctions
near your region.) Are the films 8mm or Super-8? A lot of the "modern"
projectors were dual-8, but check. (These things also show up at
pawn shops, GoodWill, etc.)

I don't have any special knowledge of the Kodak, but typically the
cases are held together with screws - frequently buried deep down
in holes, sometimes out of reach of standard length screwdrivers.
Alternately, there can be clips and tabs - look for slots where a
flat screwdriver blade might fit to push a latching tab.

BTW, I've had some luck making take-up reel belts out of thin
fuel-line tubing from the hobby shop, using a short piece of dowel
or toothpick as a splice - glued in with superglue (don't get silicone
tubing, the glue won't stick). -Wm