AF Nikkor ED 180mm f/2.8 - anyone ever dismantled?

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
I took some indoor headshot portraits with my kit 24-120 f4 and was a little underwhelmed, and was also watching the "Angry Photographer" https://www.youtube.com/user/kathodosdotcom and he is always raving about the 180 f/2.8.

Okay he raves about lots of things but the 180mm is cheap and seems perfect for headshots, and cheap screw focus F mount lenses is why I bought my D750 right?

So I was thinking that maybe after Christmas when everyone has bought their new Z6/Z7 and starts selling off older screw focus lenses that one might come up cheap.

Anyway I didn't need to wait because this morning I scored an AF variant of this for £158 described as "Condition is Used slight dust and fungus."

Normally they go for about £250.

I will warm up the screwdrivers for when it arrives.
 
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dieselnutjob

Senior Member
You might post your shot and ask for a critique, lighting can make a big difference.

This site has a lot of information on older lens repair. Might be worth checking out.

Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review | Classic Nikkors Repair and DIY maintenance

My understanding the reason you don't want a lens with fungus is it can actual etch the glass causing soft images even after cleaning.

Thanks for the link. I haven't seen that before and it looks interesting.

I repaired my AF-S VR 70-300 ( https://nikonites.com/telephoto/437...-4-5-5-6-g-vr-hunting-rattling-autofocus.html ) and this old AF lens must be simpler than that to repair surely?
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
Also I have a good friend who lives just around the corner who repairs expensive watches. Maybe I will ask him to watch over my shoulder whilst I take this apart.
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
The 180mm arrived yesterday, and I'm afraid that I was a bit disappointed. Out of two lenses bought on ebay, two have been f#$£@d. The story of the first one is here https://nikonites.com/telephoto/437...-4-5-5-6-g-vr-hunting-rattling-autofocus.html

So. As the seller said, it had dust and fungus in it. What he didn't say is that the focus mechanism is broken. On autofocus it sometimes focus and sometimes doesn't and makes grinding noises. On manual focus the ring grinds and jams.

So send it back "item not as described" or take it to bits and see what the problem is?

So this is the lens now:-

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Well it has always my intention to take it apart and clean it anyway....

Here is photo of when I found the problem:-
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You can seen that the cog is not well aligned which is when it jams and slips.

Here is the actual part:-
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It took a lot of dismantling to get it out but I got there in the end.

I will find someone with a lathe who can accurately drill a hole into the end of the shaft. I will find a drill of the right diameter and epoxy it in and then angle grind the drill off to the right length.

Fortunately the teeth in the plastic focus cam that this turns seem to have survived.
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
I have no idea which internal parts of this lens should be greased or with what grease?

I think that lithium grease is safe on plastics and I have some.

Anyone know?
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
and then there were three

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parts...

I don't know what kind of monkey metal these things are made of.

It snapped just trying to clamp it in a holder so that I could drill it :(

Anyway I found some 1.7mm hardened steel rods in my garage (from my teenage years making RC model aircraft).
I think that I will drill the 1.5mm holes that the shaft spins in out to 1.7mm, and also drill a 1.7mm hole in each cog and mount it on the rod and use that.

I can get ordinary electronics type solder to stick to the steel rod but it doesn't seem to much like the original Nikon shaft and cogs. I might have to just epoxy them on and hope.

1.7mm drill ordered on Amazon for delivery tomorrow.
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
today this arrived from Amazon, along with some fine drills

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so I cut the cogs off of the die cast shaft and drilled through the centres of them

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soldered each one onto a piece of steel rod that I found

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The ends had to be reduced a little.
I don't have a lathe so I put the rod in a drill and span it whilst gently touching the ends with an angle grinder.

I'm not sure that the solder really sticks to the die cast cogs but it does stick to the steel and I suppose takes up any gaps inside the holes of the cogs. I tried twisting the cogs relative to each other and the shaft and they don't budge so I think good enough.

This is the bit of the lens that houses the shaft:-

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It took about seven or eight hours in total.

I'm looking forward to getting this lens back together now and playing with it.
 

dieselnutjob

Senior Member
I started rebuilding the lens, and then had to stop and take it to bits again.
One of my cogs was binding; the hole wasn't perfectly in the centre (maybe 1/2 mm off) an as it span there was a "high spot" which would bind with the other cog.
I had to unsolder it, elongate the hole, and resolder it this time getting the shaft (as far as I can tell) exactly in the centre.

Anyway it's now re-assembled and works really nicely.

I took some photos as I went. Maybe someone else will find them useful.

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watch out for the tiny washer that goes on the focus screw cog:-

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dieselnutjob

Senior Member
You have to line up the cogs, the shoe that comes from the aperture release lever and the shoe that comes from that aperture ring, all at the same time as you lower the mech into the housing. You can only manipulate these parts through the aperture blades so gently hold them open with one finger and use the other hand to poke around with the various things that have to line up.

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three screws in the side that hold the aperture mech in:-

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one of the two shoes that the rods on the aperture mech have to drop into, one is for the aperture release lever, the other goes to the aperture ring:-

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the centre lens has to line up with holes in the other three bits so that a pivot bush can drop through all four pieces:-

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dieselnutjob

Senior Member
Line everything up:-

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screw the bush in (there are two of these, one each side):-

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tape the last two pieces together:-
to find the correct position swing the focus from minimum to infinity and back a few times. You will find that there is only one place where the two moldings are "happy" in relationship with each other at both extremes, plus or minus a few milimetres. I went for the middle of the "happy" zone and taped it there.

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look out for the tiny grub screw under the lens hood:-

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hark

Administrator
Staff member
Super Mod
Contributor
So did you get it to work properly now? That's a lot of effort you put into this!
 
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