Olympus CX31 revolving nosepiece

[olympus7]

Does anyone know how to take the nosepiece apart? I'd like to reapply grease but the flathead screw on the bottom of the nosepiece just won't budge. I'm wondering if there is another way to lubricate the rotating parts. Thanks in advance.

[Hobbyst46]

There is a chance that the screw-thread is the reverse of ordinary screws, try turning the screwdriver clockwise to loosen it and disassemble. Place a deep tray under the nosepiece while doing so, to catch small balls falling from the inside...

[Hobbyst46]

BTW, I purchased a nosepiece and found it to be very hard to rotate, probably due to old dried grease. I placed a few drops of light sewing-machine oil around the rim, that is along the thin space between the top and bottom parts, and incubated the nosepiece (without objectives!!) in an oven at about 60C for an hour. The oil dissolved the hard grease and the nosepiece functions properly ever after.
Note that my nosepiece was pure metal, without any lenses; if there is a lens in the nosepiece I would skip the warm incubation step...

[olympus7]

Thanks for the tip! I added 1 drop of WD40 and it's working great now.

[MicroBob]

WD40 is not a lubricant. It works against rust and creeps into cracks and displaces water but it is not useful to reduce friction. It also has the tendency to spread out to place were you don't want it.

Bob