Looking for help with Zeiss Tele-Tessar 4/135

m__ · Joined: 29 Apr 2020 Posts: 16

Hello MFlenses people!

I'm looking for some info related to repair of this lens and before spamming Zeiss about it I though I'll try my luck here and spam you instead. If you don't want to read all the details, my two problems are at the end of the post.

I bought the lens just recently, thinking that it would be a nice opportunity to try and repair it and spare it the misfortune of being turned into a donor.
The lens was in pretty bad shape (the seller stated it's beyond salvage and for parts only)- literally everything related to mechanics was broken. However, glass and coatings were in perfect condition and this was more than enough reason for me to buy it.

So far I managed to repair:
- Focus ring: Turned out the thread was stuck due to some dirt/sand that managed to get inside. I spent two hours on making it work again. Unfortunately, some damage was done. It's not as smooth as in new lenses but at least it works.
- Aperture ring: Improperly reassembled (missed the slot in the aperture). I think previous owner must've given up at some point.
- Auto/manual switch: Repairing aperture ring magically made it work again.
- Auto-aperture pin: Because it's connected to auto/manual switch it also got repaired. And I managed to find a missing spring inside the lens.
- Aperture pin/auto/manual mechanism. Improperly assembled, missing spring (also found it inside the lens).
- Aperture: working in 80% - I think either springs need a bit of adjustment or I still have something incorrectly assembled inside. Nevertheless, it's not stuck, greasy nor damaged in any way.

The two problems I have yet to fix are:
- The small ball that's responsible for the aperture ring to stop at certain values. It was gone and I don't know what diameter the replacement should be. Tried to put an old HDD bearing ball inside but the ones I have are too small (1.54 mm). Pic rel (with HDD ball visible) - https://i.imgur.com/7dXRfKP.jpg
- Auto/manual switch won't stay locked in either auto nor manual position. I think there's something missing but there's nothing on the Web about said switch. Picture for reference - https://i.imgur.com/w2PS7VS.jpg

If any of you knows anything about these two I'll be extremely grateful. Thanks in advance.

P.S. There's no SSL certificate on this site?