Sanity check and possibly stupid disassembly question ...

[dmr]

First of all, I'm not sure if this should go here in the Canon forum or in the repair forum so please excuse me if I posted in the wrong place.

Anyway, this has been an interesting weekend. To summarize I've got a GIII with a shutter that does not fire and a stuck shutter speed ring.

I just borrowed a fairly nice spanner wrench kit, and I already have such things as jewelers screwdrivers, hemostats, needle nose, etc., as I do occasional jewelry making and repair.

This is my first attempt to disassemble and repair a camera, so I'm taking things slow and easy and I thought I should check to see if anyone here who has done this before can answer a maybe-stupid question.

I'm right now just trying to disassemble the thing enough to inspect and see what is going on, or not going on. I removed the large front spanner screw ring, then the front black plate with the lettering, then a thin flat plate. Nothing I can see in there is obviously jammed/broken/loose or anything. I then took off the spanner screw ring (is that the correct term) which holds the front lens element, shook out the lens element and carefully wrapped it in tissue for the time being. I can't really see much more in the front, and I don't see any more obvious things to be removed from the front.

Now, here's my question. From the exploded diagrams, it looks like the way to take apart further is to remove both the main top and bottom covers and then remove the whole front lens/shutter/focus/meter thing in one assembly.

Is this what I should be removing next or is there something I'm missing where you can do more of the disassembly from the front?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance, gang.