Mr. Kino, How did you dissolve the helicoil grease? Did you disassemble the lens? Is there a way to get solvent in there without such disassembly? I guess I could immerse them...seems a tad dangerous. I have two beautiful machines, both frozen; and two junky ones, not frozen. I have tries injecting solvent in from the backside because one can see the lens move. No luck.
Any advice?
I had to remove the lens/shutter assembly entirely, disassemble it and use acetone and other nasty solvents to clean it off. It is very hard to do this properly. Alignment of certain pins and levers internally is hard to obtain properly.
If you have the money; sent it off.
However, you might be able to get it unfrozen by heating the lens barrel with a hair dryer to the point you can hardly touch it, and then applying some pressure to get it rotating, but NOT TOO MUCH or you'll break the brass pins that allows the helicoid to move in and out but not rotate; and then it becomes a pretty paper weight.
As Nicholas Lindan says, you can see the slot where the helicoid resides through the rear of the film aperture. Take a syringe with 91% alcohol and put a few drops around the grooves and allow it to soak. Gently work it as far as you can but don't use a lot of force. The syringe needle is resting against one of those two important guide pins I speak of above. They can shear off if you apply too much pressure!
Typically if you get it hot, it will move a bit and then you can work from there. When it starts to break free, the green grease will begin to migrate to the rear of the lens. Be sure to clean this edge of the helicoid often, mopping up the foul junk with small sheets of paper stuck down into the slot where the syringe resides. DO NOT FLOOD THE HELICOID! It will get into the shutter and then you'll have a mess.
Do this all at your own risk; there are simply too many problems that can arise from this sort of "hobo-repair", but sometimes it works. You may find you have to clean it many, many time for it to work.
