Fixing a coupling lever on an AI lens....

Hi the coupling lever on one of my lenses has gone slack. Can anyone

tell me how complex a job it is to fix?

 

Also what would I be looking at (price) if I were to get it fixed via

a camera repair shop?

 

Thanks for your time....

The aperture coupling lever is only tensioned by a small spring. You can get at it by removing the black cowling that surrounds the rear of the lens. It might be necessary to remove the bayonet mount itself to do this - the lenses do vary somewhat in their precise construction. Generally all of this is quite easy with suitable jeweller's screwdrivers.

 

If the lever has gone slack that presumably means either the spring has broken, or has jumped off its mounts, or has stretched (unlikely). Obviously the solution to the problem depends on exactly what you find when you get the cowling off, but you might need to get hold of a suitable replacement spring. If it has simply come off its mount then putting it back on is a simple but rather fiddly job. A spring that has stretched, or deformed, or even broken, might be made sevicable again by teasing out a couple of coils of the spring to make a new hook on the end, so that it can be mounted again.

This may be of help:

 

http://home.cogeco.ca/~ddroder/105.html (thanks to Don Doucette)

Some Nikkor lenses have screws that are locked in place with paint or a paint like substance. I�ve seen a friend and camera repairman soften this paint with MEK applied with a Q-Tip. If the paint is not soften there is a real danger of torquing off the head of the screw (been there, done that). I don�t know what the effect of MEK is on the lens coatings if any but I would not get any on anything other than the rear bayonet and screws, be careful.