CLA your Zuikos
CLA - Clean, Lubricate and Adjust.
Before getting manual lenses, I actually had no experience in fixing lenses.
As mentioned in my very first post, the first lens that was serviced by myself was my OM-SYSTEM 55mm F1.2 and for a pretty long time that lens was not properly reinstalled.
Over the years, I have tried to open up lenses and gradually picked up the basic skills to fix simple Zuikos.
What I mean simple ones are those without floating elements or without double helicoid threads, e.g. 21/2, 90/2, 100/2.
Those require some skills to fix so I am still not brave enough to try. I may do that one day when I have extra cash to get extra copies for practising.
So, opening up lenses can be pretty scary, the first thing of course is to have the tools.
I usually use a lens spanner, plus some screwdrivers, some lens wiping tissues and solution, lighter fluid and helicoid grease. Usually they do the job.
Lay your parts on a flat surface and put them in orders may make things slightly easier too.
The following photos were taken a long long time ago. 55mm F1.2 is indeed not too difficult to fix.
If you talk about cleaning the glass, it's an easy task. The tricky part is with the helicoid.
The RE-threading of the helicoid can be a nightmare. I still remember this first fix took me like an overnight work, I kept trying to thread it back for 6 hours or so. However, after all these I have managed to pick up how to thread it back.
1. If you tear apart the whole thing, the base mount (the black part) would spin off. Once it is detached, the thick silver ring will spin off afterwards. You can then clean the old grease or any dirt and relube the threads.
2.Then comes the tricky part and basically your hands have to be very gentle. From my experience, the threading usually begins from the trough on the thick silver part. With very gentle spin plus trial and error usually you can thread it back onto the helicoid. It's very hard to explain. (You can also mark it but usually they spin off all of a sudden so it's not easy to mark the position where the helicoid spins off.)
3. Once you get it threaded, then you have to spin the black base mount back, but you CANNOT spin it to the tightest because you have to align the two long levers linked to the black base mount. If you look from a top down view, you will see two holes for the two long levers to pass through. You have to spin the black base mount for several rounds. Once you have the levers aligned, then you can GRAB the black base mount and spin the thick silver ring until the whole thing threads back all in.
4. Once threaded all in, you put the external helicoid part (the part with distance scale engraved) back. On that ring, there are three to four very tiny tiny screws which helps set the infinity of the lens. You can see in the above photo, the one near the 0.45 mark. Those screws are very small so make sure you don't lose them, I had nightmares dropping one and took me so long to locate it back.
From my experience, I wouldn't lock the screws too tightly because you still need to adjust the infinity of the lens. Briefly lock them for the time being and install the lens groups back first. Once everything is put back, MOUNT THE LENS ON AN OM FILM BODY WHICH YOU ALWAYS USE. If you have multiple OM bodies, then it would be problematic because over the years the Lens Reflex might have become inaccurate so say if it fits camera A, it might not fit camera B. Also if you use a digital camera with third party adapters, you will find yourself in even bigger trouble. My experience tells me that if you use an OM body to adjust infinity, usually you can achieve infinity on a digital body. If you adjust it through a digital body, you will usually be way off when you mount the lens on OM film bodies.
With the lens mounted, unscrew the tiny screws. (DO NOT DROP THEM OR YOU WANNA CRY FOR SURE). Through the film camera's viewfinder, look at some distant objects and pull the part with distance scale towards the aperture ring, then apply gentle force and spin the part together with the helicoid. You should be able to see whether the distant object becomes in focus. Once achieved, pull the part with distance scale back towards the base mount, then carefully put the screws back in position. DO NOT MOVE THE HELICOID OR YOU WILL HAVE TO ADJUST IT AGAIN. It's quite tricky.
When everything is done, I usually still won't put the leather grip back. Instead, I will mount the lens on other bodies to make sure the lens can achieve infinity focus. If not, I will make tiny adjustments. When all is correct, I will then glue the leather grip back and basically the CLA is done.
This is a 50mm F1.4, the long lever is the silver leg you can see at around twelve o'clock position. It's similar on the 55mm F1.2 and you have to slide it back in the hole.
This is my M-SYSTEM 55mm F1.2 when first received and this particular CLA went way smoother. The lens had too much old grease and it took me more than 6 rounds of wiping to get the junk off. You can see how black the dirt was.
In this photo, you can see the aforementioned lever. The helicoid here was already threaded back together with the thick silver part. The hole can actually be seen in this photo too. The one between the two black circular holes.
This was almost done.
Complete!
If you need help regarding CLA of OM Zuiko 55mm F1.2, you can send me an email or drop me a line on Instagram. I might be able to offer some help.
Just a sharing of how I learnt to fix my Zuikos, cheers!