The Lens Mount

While you have the camera stripped down to its essentials, you might as well clean the lens mount. It's probably full of 60-year old hardened grease and grime. Removing the lens mount is simple.

First, if you haven't already, remove the milled wheel to the upper left. Put the screw off to the side. You can take the milled wheel to the kitchen and scrub it with a toothbrush and dishwashing soap. It often has quite a bit of grime in between the raised teeth and in the groove. 

Remove the four small retaining screws. I've already done that here. The screws are all the same size, so just group them somewhere so they don't get mixed up.

The assembly lifts up and out of the camera from the bottom of the mount first. Look closely at the body and the back of the lens mount. There might be small metal washers. Make note on a piece of paper where they are located and remove them. Squirt some lighter fluid on a rag or paper towel and remove the surface grime. There will probably be plenty of it. If you depress the small chromed lever, you should be able to rotate the lens mount off the body entirely. Wipe away all of the old grease and debris. If the exterior is still really dirty, take it into the kitchen and use a toothbrush with dishwashing fluid to clean it.

Thoroughly dry all of the parts. Relubricate the mount with some grease and spin it back onto the body. The lens should be at the infinity position when the bevel is flat with the mount. If not, remove, rotate back about a half turn and try again. The lens bevel should move freely within the mount. If it doesn't, check for debris. If it binds, it might mean that one of the pieces is out of round. That will require work beyond what I can offer here.

Before you reattach the lens mount, you'll need to reset the rangefinder to the infinity position. To do that, reattach the rangefinder prism. There is a small wheel inside the shutter box. If the rangefinder prism has been reattached correctly, the prism should slide back and forth when you turn the wheel. Look through the viewfinder at a distant object that is at least 500 feet away. Rotate the wheel until the two images coincide. Now, hold that position and reinsert the lens mount into the body and replace any of the thin metal washers. Replace and very lightly tighten the screws. Reattach the milled wheel.

Check the viewfinder on your distant object. If you did it correctly, the images will still coincide and you're all set. If not, remove the milled wheel and the lens mount, and try again.

Once infinity focus is set, tighten the screws snug. When tightened, you should be able to freely rotate the lens with the milled wheel. If it binds, loosen all of the screws and begin to tighten a little at a time, checking the action of the wheel at each stage.

Check the viewfinder again on both near and far objects.

> Getting It Back Together