Retina IIa Stiff Focus Ring

[Andrew Alexander]

I have a very nice IIa that I got from Ben a few weeks ago and the focus ring is just a bit stiff (requires more than a light, one finger effort to focus...kind of grabby). I don't want to mess this camera up and I read where this is a fairly common problem. Can one of you fine DYI'ers point me in the right direction (or links) to how I might go about a clean and lubricate of possibly just the ring. The camera does not require anything else that I can tell so I would rather not go into the entire overhaul (as described in Chris whats his names site) just to lube the ring. Just got finishing Scott's thread about his Retina repair and I am not quite up to piecing together shutter blades. Any hints and tips would be appreciated.

~a

[Mike Kovacs]

See here for step by step instructions.

[Andrew Alexander]

Thanks for the link Mike...don't know how I missed that...must have been inhibited by the overhaul procedure...can't see the forest from the trees syndrome...a

[Andrew Alexander]

Boy that shutter assembly retainer ring is a bugger...time to finally buy a spanner wrench. Thinking about one of these

http://www.skgrimes.com/span/index.htm

any opinons?

[Dean Williams]

I can't be sure, Andrew, but I don't think those will work for a Retina shutter retaining ring.  I don't wish to take sales away from Grimes, but I have seen specialty spanners for Retinas on ebay.  They run around $29, I think.

[Mike Kovacs]

Many of the 35mm cameras have very tight clearance issues because of the small film gate.  Usually I can get my spanners in there to get the nut started when the camera is folded down.  I have a set from micro tools.  I'd like to add the long wrench for TLRs at some point.