Problems with Heurtier P6-24 bi-film

[starfilms]

Hello.

I'm really glad that I found this forum and thank you to whoever is maintaining it!

I got a Heurtier P6-24 bi-film (not the 24b) off eBay and received it 2 days ago. My first problem was finding the right manual for it. It doesn't seem that this manual is available on the net. I found a few copies of the P6-24b manual in French and English but the 24b is slightly different from the 24. Which brings me to my first problem. The 24b uses a "bi-format" pressure plate. You pull on it or push it to switch from regular 8 to Super 8. I have movies in both regular 8 and Super 8 I want to convert to digital. I found out that the pressure plate that came with the projector is the Super 8 one. So, even though I can project the regular 8 movies with it, you can see the perforations on the screen. An added bonus, though, is that the entire surface of the film being exposed, you can see parts that you have never seen before. In any case, I like the Heurtier better than my old Argus 880z that I bought new some 35 years ago. It's more quiet than the Argus and the lamp is twice as powerful at 100W. The image is also more stable and less jittery. The only problem is the missing regular 8 pressure plate. I contacted the seller but I'm not holding my breath. Is there any remote hope of finding such a beast somewhere?

The 2nd problem with it comes from the audio unit that it was bundled with. I don't have any sound movie so I cannot really test the unit but after reading a few manuals, if the "ampli" switch is depressed on the main projector unit and the projector unit is properly coupled to the base unit, while playing, the green status light for playback should come on. It doesn't. There is actually absolutely no sign of any activity on the audio unit. Do I really need to have a sound movie to bring it to life?

3rd problem happened yesterday night, as after all the settings and tuning, I was finally capturing my first reel. About halfway through the 200 ft. reel, the projector started slowing down dramatically to completely stop within a few seconds. I opened the case and I can only tell that the belt is not broken and still applies pressure on the gear there but having no prior experience with belts, I cannot tell whether it's damaged or not. Can someone with some experience confirm that I would need to change the belt?

Thanks in advance for all pointers, info and help!

-Laurent.

[nikonr10]

Hello do not know much about Heurtier , but have just had my elmo cleaned and lub by Van Eck ,
not cheap but did a really good job on repair and lub, stock's all kind's of spare part's ,

just google van eck , ok hope this helps !

[john59]

Just my two cents worth, I have heard that these french projectors are very nasty with film, be careful with your collection. Might be worth putting a reel of leader through it first.