[nugget247]

This is my first 'real' post after lurking here for a while so my apologies if this is not in the right forum.

I have a very nice Vivitar Series 1 (Komine) 28-90mm f/2.8-3.5 lens in PK that is perfect optically but has slow blades with some oil showing on them. I am not willing to pay ~$100 to get it cleaned/fixed (it's not worth that much) so I am trying to decide what to do with it. I was thinking that one option would be to remove or grind away the aperture lever, which would essentially make it operate the same as an M42 lens (when used with an adapter) on my K-30. I'd have to manually open the aperture to compose my shot with a bright viewfinder and then manually stop it down to take the shot, but as long as the blades still move, ever so slowly, it would still function. Even with the oil it still closes from f/2.8 to f/16 in less than 1 second. Of course the possibility of it ever being at 100% functionality again is gone if I modify it in this way, but then again it's not doing anything for me in it's current state.

Is my thinking correct here? Do I have any other options besides selling it to somebody comfortable making the repair themselves? Perhaps such a person is reading this and will help me make up my mind

Thanks in advance

[i_trax]

One other option is to leave it on a window facing the sun, here in Australia the sun is very strong so usually one day should work.
Heat from the sun usually can soften the oil making the blades more responsive.
Although there is one risk, the oil can leak /drip onto the glass so try to keep lens horizontally while in the Sun.
I managed to make some lenses usable again, one needs oil to be cleaned from the rear element but blades are moving ok and looks like removing the rear element shouldn't be too hard.
There is still plenty oil visible on the blades but they are moving fine, you can see some oil in the middle of the rear lens which need to be cleaned

[Cee Cee]

I have the same lens (28xxxxxxx) with a similar problem, the blades seem ok but a tiny bit slow to react in some circumstances causing incorrect exposure. I opted to remove the arm (rather than cut it off) just remove the lens mount and undo & remove the screws that hold the arm in place and remove the arm, from memory it was pretty straight forward and took just a couple of minutes, If I decide to clean the blades (or have it cleaned) I can refit the arm. The lens works well as a manual lens.
cheers

[nugget247]

One other option is to leave it on a window facing the sun, here in Australia the sun is very strong so usually one day should work.
Heat from the sun usually can soften the oil making the blades more responsive.
Although there is one risk, the oil can leak /drip onto the glass so try to keep lens horizontally while in the Sun.
I managed to make some lenses usable again, one needs oil to be cleaned from the rear element but blades are moving ok and looks like removing the rear element shouldn't be too hard.
There is still plenty oil visible on the blades but they are moving fine, you can see some oil in the middle of the rear lens which need to be cleaned

I sadly do not live in Australia, but instead in the land of no sun and 3 feet of snow (Boston). I have another old Komine lens that had a stiff focusing ring and push/pull zoom action that responded well to being wrapped in a heating pad for a while. The iris on that one was fine so I didn't think to use the same technique for this issue, but will give it a try. Thanks!