Olympus 35RC Refitting Lens Advice

[Dickster]

Hello Gentlefolk,

I've recently acquired a couple of 35RCs one of which wasn't working and the other has a damaged lens coating. It seemed like a good idea to remove the lens from one and transplant it to the other to make one good camera, whilst inspecting the one that wasn't working I decided to tinker with it and got it working again so I want to either refit the original lens or possibly swap the lenses over with the other RC.

My question is this: if I undo the three small screws that clamp the retainer to the lens assy, I can then unscrew the lens assy, to refit it do I screw the lens all the way back into the helicoid threads then add the retainer and just screw it/clamp it down at infinity or does it all have to be collimated? does the rangefinder rod need anything doing? how do I know that the lens is registered to the rangefinder properly, is it a case that I would need to check by using ground glass at infinity?

I suppose an easier question might be 'how do I replace the lens assy?

 

[callumross]

Have you removed the entire lens assembly then, or just unscrewed some lens blocks from the main helicoid? Or have you not removed anything yet? Either way you're definitely going to need to adjust the focus, you'd be incredibly lucky to fit it in such a way that it happens to be aligned correctly. If you don't have a ground glass you can just use something like masking tape or magic tape on a bright enough day. That's how I adjusted my 35SP.

Regards to the rangefinder rod, it shouldn't need anything done to it as long as you fit the lens assembly properly such that it makes connection. I would adjust the rangefinder after doing this all as well.

Lastly, what were you planning on doing with the RC with the damaged coating now? I'd at least run a roll through it because it might not have as much impact on the images as you'd expect.

 

[Dickster]

Have you removed the entire lens assembly then, or just unscrewed some lens blocks from the main helicoid? Or have you not removed anything yet? Either way you're definitely going to need to adjust the focus, you'd be incredibly lucky to fit it in such a way that it happens to be aligned correctly. If you don't have a ground glass you can just use something like masking tape or magic tape on a bright enough day. That's how I adjusted my 35SP.

Regards to the rangefinder rod, it shouldn't need anything done to it as long as you fit the lens assembly properly such that it makes connection. I would adjust the rangefinder after doing this all as well.

Lastly, what were you planning on doing with the RC with the damaged coating now? I'd at least run a roll through it because it might not have as much impact on the images as you'd expect.

Thanks for your reply, I was going to do as you say and run a film through it, although it's older and in slightly worse cosmetic condition it actually feels much better to use and the coating flaw is only at the edges and fairly minor, I've read on this forum about people using RCs with scratched lenses without issues so I'll see.

I'd already removed the lens from the second one, I removed the lens block from the helicoid (i.e the complete lens as one unit) it screwed back in easy enough but there wasn't any witness marks from the screws and I didn't take any reference pictures of it before removing it.

I have that matt scotch tape, so as long as infinity matches with infinity on the lens it should be matched?

 

[callumross]

Thanks for your reply, I was going to do as you say and run a film through it, although it's older and in slightly worse cosmetic condition it actually feels much better to use and the coating flaw is only at the edges and fairly minor, I've read on this forum about people using RCs with scratched lenses without issues so I'll see.

I'd already removed the lens from the second one, I removed the lens block from the helicoid (i.e the complete lens as one unit) it screwed back in easy enough but there wasn't any witness marks from the screws and I didn't take any reference pictures of it before removing it.

I have that matt scotch tape, so as long as infinity matches with infinity on the lens it should be matched?

If you've already managed to screw it back on successfully and it's all connected to the rangefinder then you should be good to go. And yes as long as infinity matches then the rest of the focus range is also matched. There wouldn't be much you could do if that wasn't the case anyway. You'll still need to adjust the rangefinder though, there are plenty of guides on this site and elsewhere.