Over the past year or so, I’ve written 2 articles on the N80/F80 Nikon Film Camera. One that’s more of a review here and one that goes over how to replace the door when the latches break here.

In recent conversation with a fellow photographer at a swap meet, he mentioned that there used to be a metal aftermarket part that was sold to repair the broken door latches versus needing a whole new door. I’ve never seen that in all of my searching, but I have been aware of a similar piece for repairing Nikon F100 door latches that tend to break in the same manner.

They can be found on eBay from a seller named “Plutoniusx” and cost around $40.

Now the door for the F100 is a different shape, design, and size compared to the N80/F80 cameras, but the latch mechanism does look very similar, if not exactly the same. Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to order one and test out if the part would work on the N80/F80. I had an F80 that I paid $20 for worked fine other than the fact that the latches were broken. I also had a dead N80 that had a perfectly fine door, but I was hoping this fix would work - and be more permanent since it is a metal piece replacing the brittle plastic latches.

The kit arrived fairly quickly as coincidentally the seller lives only about 3 towns over from me here in Ohio. Here are the two pieces that come in the mail. A 3D-printed guide piece for trimming the dead plastic to fit, before glueing the provided metal piece.

The F80 “patient” and his new latch kit are pictured below.

And here are the broken latches before the repair:

Here is the guide piece fitted to the broken latch area. The parts of the broken latches are to be filed down to match the profile of the guide piece.

And here is what it looks like after filing it down. Note that during the filing process I had a towel covering the camera to keep dust from getting in. The instructions with the kit say to remove the door, but I found just covering with with a towel completely and then blowing everything off later with a rocket blower to be quicker and easier.

Next its time to glue! 3 small dabs of SuperGlue on the new metal part - one near each end and one in the middle. I used a 35mm film clip to keep tension on the area while the glue was curing.

One the glue cured for an hour or so, I removed the clip and tested it out. Success! The door closed and latched tight!

Now all that’s left to do is a little cleaning of the exterior of the camera to get rid of some the grime and stickiness that’s common on older cameras like this, then it will be good as new again!

In terms of difficulty, this repair is much easier than the other method that I covered of replacing the entire rear door. And, time will tell but I would venture to say this is more of a permanent repair as the metal latches aren’t prone to cracking like 25+ year old plastic may be. The unknown for me here is whether or not introducing the new metal part creates more strain on the mechanism over time and causes that part of the system to fail. I’ll keep using this one to find out.

If you have an F80 or N80 that you love and suddenly find yourself with broken latches, then I recommend this repair. It’s only around $40 and a little bit of your time. The only tools needed are a file, some sort of clip to hold the piece while glueing, and some SuperGlue. Of course this isn’t a “factory” repair with factory parts, but since the new door is NLA and finding a used donor door can be difficult and maybe just as much money by the time you purchase the dead camera, have it shipped to you, and remove the door, I think its a good option.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions, thanks!

Jeremy