Minolta MD lens teardown

[SuperSirLink]

I have two Minolta MD lenses that have some fungus on the internal elements. One is a 50/1.7 and the other is a 28/2.8

I am wondering if anyone has disassembled these before and how hard was it?

[dnas]

They are easy enough to tear down, but the later MD lenses have sealed element groups, rather than individual ring screws for each element, like the older MC lenses.
This means that often, if the fungus is inside an element group, you can't actually separate the elements to clean the fungus.

The earlier MD 28mm can be stripped down to each element, and it looks like your later MD 28mm does not have sealed element groups. So you have a better chance of cleaning this.

The MD 50mm is almost certain to have sealed element groups, so you can hope that the fungus is not inside these. Once you remove front and back, the element groups are generally held in place by three screws.

[Rigel]

Check the channel of Matt Bierner on youtube ... He disassembles a lot of Minolta lenses while providing very detailed footage ..

edit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UniD4V6aS4

[Steakface]

I've repaired a 1.7 MD-II 50mm and a 2.0 MD-III 50mm. Both lenses were easy to take apart and put back together, very similar tear down for both. I imagine the 28mm won't be much different. My lenses needed to be cleaned and re-lubed so they were full tear downs aside from taking apart the lens groups. Be aware that if you mess with the focusing you'll have to reset infinity focus (not hard at all on these lenses). For detailed instructions, as Rigel said, Matt Bierner has some good videos.

[SuperSirLink]

Thanks, all very helpful! Will check out that Youtube vid... Honestly not sure how long the fungus has been there... These were my fathers from the 80's, he used them up to the mid 90s. I have since pulled them out to use on my X-T2... I can't see any impact in my shots, so if it is not getting worse, it might not be worth taking it apart...