TOU Five Star 35-75mm Repair

David · Expire: 2013-01-25

Picked up a 35-75mmm Five Star for about $8 the other week. The aperture blades were frozen open (oil) and and zoom didn't function (the lens couldn't slide.) In addition, an internal lens had some haze. The aperture blades were an easy fix -- take apart the assembly, remove the blades, remove the oil, and reassemble. The zoom took more work.
After three attempted repairs on the zoom, I was about to give up. I realized that the mechanism was frozen, and it's likely because someone put it together wrong some time in the past. I decided to give it one last shot. Either the lens would end up working or no more broken. I took off an internal lens element, grabbed a vice grip, locked it onto the internal element's housing (past the threads) and pulled as hard as I could.
POP! The lend mechanism unfroze. But it was still extremely difficult to move. Some investigation uncovered that the zoom runs on plastic rollers that had been screwed in too tight. A 1/4 turn left and the wheels began moving better. But not very well. So I put some fishing reel lube on the wheels and moved the zoom in and out a number of times. The lube spread around and now the lens is mostly perfect. The only flaw is that it focuses slightly past infinity (about 1/2mm rotation past infinity.)
So, the lens fixed, I decided to take it out to Mt. Diablo for some photos. Here are a few:

The complete set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manualfocusmania/sets/72157626626186088