Vivitar 200mm 3.0 Series 1 - Disassembly help?

[Zack Birlew]

Hi, everybody, I found a fixer of a Vivitar 200mm 3.0 that just needed a light clean and the rubber grip replaced but I’m having a hard time getting the front element out. On Allphotolenses.com, there’s PDF copies of the parts list and diagrams for it and it looks like the front name ring is supposed to just unscrew after removing a small retaining screw but I can’t seem to get it to rotate out. Has anybody worked with this lens before or know the trick to getting this front name ring out? I’ve tried searching but I haven’t found service discussions on this lens so far. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Clint Lealos]

I have not worked on this lens before, but I've had plenty of problems getting the front ring off on other lenses. Usually, its because the threads are extremely dirty, damaged, or dry. A spanning wrench is essential, but if you are taking lenses apart...you already know all this Is the ring moving at all? Got any pics?

 

[Zack Birlew]

Hi, yeah, I know what you mean about dirty threads and I believe that played a factor in this lens too. I’m going to be posting about it to my Instagram at @zackbirlew but I’ll announce that I got the front ring off! It was an ugly process though as the threads were beyond difficult to undo by normal means and, like some other Vivitar Series 1 lenses, there were no lens spanner notches to help unscrew the front ring assembly. Unfortunately, I had to cut the built in hood off to get to the front ring to see what was going on. It had sat so flush with the front ring assembly that I couldn’t grip the front ring and all other normal attempts with rubber lens wrench tubes just didn’t work except to rub on the glass and make scratches on the name ring. My Dremel broke some time ago so I had to use sharp edged files to file a cut in the hood and then, with a little Hulk strength, snapped it apart cleanly. From there, I could see that there was some buildup of crud between the hood and front ring and there was no way to moisten the threads other than the set screw hole which is where it was locked. I had already tried to grind down the threads there in case it was a warped spot but to no avail. With the hood gone, I was able to take a rubber strap wrench to grip the ring itself and put enough tension to finally get the ring to turn which it did smoothly shortly after. Looking at it, there may be a warp spot on the ring or the inner threads but I could see the spot I ground and the small hole I tried to drill and those spots looked fine actually. I don’t know, maybe it was dropped at some point or maybe, as I can see, they put too much loctite or whatever sealant Vivitar used? In any case, I’m going to clean the heck out of the threads and, of course, the glass. Then all that’s left is to relube the helicoid assembly and hope it all works alright when I put it back together. The hood, thankfully, could probably be reused as well as long as I just tape over the gap and maybe apply a wrap or band to hold it in place. I know the images may not be much better than my Vivitar 200mm 3.5 or 3.5 preset version but I wanted to try it out with it being a Series 1 lens and all. It may be an ugly sample now but at least the glass is in great shape, which is the most important part, and it’s a Nikon Mount like I wanted so, having taken it apart now, I could always swap the back end with another mount model later if I ever needed to.