What should I do with this lens?

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I recently acquired a Pentax-M 24-35mm f/3.5, an old favorite of mine, at what seemed a good price. Glass looked good, clicky/smooth, etc. I also needed to get my ME Super serviced, so I packed up camera and lens and sent them both to Eric Hendrickson.

Eric got the gear and sent me an invoice for the camera CLA. And of the zoom, he said: "24-35mm I can not repair. The zooming and focus is way off."

Not sure what to make of this—and if he can't fix it, who can? It's in great cosmetic shape, but obviously isn't working right. Now I've got it back and I'm not sure what to do.

Any of you want to take a crack at it? I'm kinda stuck with the thing. It's this one:

 

[f16sunshine]

Maybe reach out to John Van Stelton at Focal point.
Or, Maybe Belamy at Japan Camera Hunter can find you someone in Japan to repair it....
Could get expensive either way 😱
Good luck!

 

[Chris101]

Or stick it on your camera and take a picture. If you like what it does, keep using it. If not, you can still use it to keep papers from flying around (it wasn't expensive, right?)

 

[Beemermark]

There are plastic spiral gears used in zoom lenses and they wear out. So you need a non-obtainable new gear.

 

[02Pilot]

Possible it's been opened before and incorrectly reassembled?

 

[johannielscom]

Sell it for parts. State the issue. Recover some of your investment and get another one.

Looks like a nice lens, never heard of it before.

 

[nikon_sam]

I agree that you can sell it for Parts...
I just sold a Mamiya-Sekor 70mm 2.8 (Shutter-Type) Lens with a fogged front group & good rear group of glass...BUT the rest of the lens looked and worked like brand new...
I was able to recoup some of my money spent buying the lens and I had already replaced it with one that was in great condition...I had thought of switching out the glass between the two lenses but in the end didn't...
If it's a lens that you can still get at a reasonable price get another and sell this one on...someone will possibly need the parts...

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Yeah, I'm thinking that selling for parts is probably the way to go. They do come up on eBay now and again. It's a great little lens, very compact, an excellent wide-snapshot sunny-day all-rounder.

And I suspect 02Pilot might be right…reassembled wrong by somebody? I suppose it may be that there's a worn plastic helicoid in there, but I kinda doubt it—the M lenses are very sturdy, and this is no exception.

I'll wait a little while before selling, though, in case some tinkerer here wants to have a go...

 

[johnnyrod]

What does it look like if you stick it on your camera and look through the viewfinder?

 

[02Pilot]

Looks like 9 elements in 7 groups, if the block diagram I found is correct. Plenty of places to accidentally flip an element.

If you're just looking to get it out of your sight, I'm happy to take it off your hands. I don't need it, but I find it hard to resist the challenge such things present.