Flektogon 35 / 2.4 - Stiff and lumpy focusing.

[Lloydy]

The Flektogon 35 / 2.4 I got the other day looked perfect, but the focus was stiff and had tight spots as it turned, it felt lumpy. So I took it apart and cleaned the horrible black lithium grease out and re lubed it with light general purpose grease. It felt really nice and the lumpiness had gone. Until I screwed the back of the lens on, and the tight spots had returned just like before. If I took the back plate off it was fine.
After much deliberation and taking the back of and on many times, I finally figured it out.
The aperture control lever in the first picture is actually very loose on its pivot screw allowing the tip to move in both directions - arrowed - and the sharp corners were digging in, and instantly releasing, as the lever ran in the V shaped lever in picture two. This was the lumpy feeling that I got as the lens moved on its helicoid.





So, I very lightly greased the V groove in the lever ( Pic 2), and then I used a diamond dust needle file to shape the lever ( Pic' 1 ) I took the sharpness off the corners but did not touch the center part of the tip so as to keep the dimension as it was. I then polished the file marks with some ultra fine emery paper.



Once I reassembled the lens the lumpiness had gone and the focus is as smooth as it should be. It's a strange little problem, and it might not affect other Flektogons or Zeiss lenses, but it's always worth looking at other things that might be causing a problem. The obvious thing was the helicoid, which I started with, but nearly 5 hours later I finally found the problem.

[philslizzy]

Nice one Dave. Now tell me why the shutter on my old camera will not work unless it is soaked in lighter fuel.

[Gonzoo]

Propably it's stuck with grease/oil. Lighter fuel will delute it to a working state until it is evaporated. Then the grease/oil stucks again.

[kiddo]

Hi there, i've just bought a flek that seems to suffer of the same issue, but i've got no clue how to get inside of it. Do you know any link that might help me out? Besides this, the diaphragm doesnt have the little steps between the aperture stops (i assume it's been used for video) and i wonder if it would be easy fix to fix that out or not. The worse thing,there is no return option, so i really need to get it fixed, as i've been testing it and it seems pretty sharp lens ,especially for close up work with extension ring.

[visualopsins]

for sharing Lloydy!

[kiddo]

Indeed, i Also thank you for sharing , in fact ,this is the only place i read about this issue on this flek.

[mareinke]

The replaced spring broke the original balance, I guess,