"I just hold the lens where I want it."
That works fine for hand holding, but for shooting show shutter speed landscapes from a tripod it would introduce motion blue. I've thought about putting a rubber band around the barrel, and then adjusting it to be right in front of the zoom/focus ring. I've never thought of the tape trick.
Those may work, but I'm still interested to know if Nikon can repair it to work like new again?
I first heard about this lens in one of John Shaw's book about 10 years ago, but I never could find one. Then one day I walked into a small used camera shop here in Las Vegas called "Camera Tech." They had glass case after glass case filled with old manual focus Nikon lenses. There were so many that you could not see what all they had. I asked the man behind the counter if had ever heard of the 50-135mm? He pulled one out, I bought it on the spot.
Sadly that little shop burned to the ground back in 2003 or so. I imagine that all of those old Nikon camera's and lenses were destroyed. What a waste.
http://www.cameratech.net/
Jared