Need Help: Lens Adjustment

[joseph_barbano]

I have a 28mm R lens (Ser. 288XXXX) which works fine except slightly

stiff lens focusing barrel. Probably never serviced. I want to

adjust (lessen) the drag on the lens barrel. Need technical

advice. Thanks.

[john_shriver]

It's not an "ajdustment". The drag is set by the viscosity of the damping grease in the focusing helical. The stuff is made in several different thicknesses. For the price of buying several tubs of the stuff (it's like $15 a can), DAG or Sherry Krauter can take it apart, clean the decaying grease out of the helical, put in new grease, and put it back together right and clean.

 

Also, if the grease in the helical has gone bad, there may well also be haze in the lens from the oils that evaporated out of the grease.

[peter_yankin]

Is it uniformly stiff or just at one point? If the latter it could be bent, if the former, I'd try working it back and forth a few hundred times before rushing to throw money at it. A lot of times just normal use will loosen it up, but "normal" use for a lot of Leica lenses is once or twice a year.