All the king's horses and all the king's men... : p

Ok, well I, at least, can't put this tripod back together again. I"ve got a Manfrotto tripod with one of their new 90 degree center posts. I was disassembling it to clean it for the first time, and I don't know what happened, but the mechanism that allows for the 90 degree feature just "exploded" on me. Not as in it was damaged or anything, just that I wasn't able to slowly take it apart and note how to put it back together.

I've written Manfrotto half a dozen emails, but they've never responded, and I can't find any videos on youtube or anything. Any help?

Manfrotto has alot of tripods please provide a exact model number.

strider42 wrote in post #17982843
Ok, well I, at least, can't put this tripod back together again. I"ve got a Manfrotto tripod with one of their new 90 degree center posts. I was disassembling it to clean it for the first time, and I don't know what happened, but the mechanism that allows for the 90 degree feature just "exploded" on me. Not as in it was damaged or anything, just that I wasn't able to slowly take it apart and note how to put it back together.

I've written Manfrotto half a dozen emails, but they've never responded, and I can't find any videos on youtube or anything. Any help?

I would contact the owners/parent company of Manfrotto who's name is Vitec Group and complain about the lack of response . The CEO's name is Stephen Bird. Here is their email address. info@vitecgroup.com .I bet an email that is marked his att will get things moving.

Rgds

Sorry to say that to my understanding Manfrotto USA parts & service don't have a great reputation in the USA. In my personal experience, the wait for parts has been interminable, the ability to get someone on the phone who can answer questions, och, not so good.

However, the web site is fairly good at providing parts diagrams for just about every current and recent tripod, which may help you to understand how things go back together.

Please provide a tripod model number, it's likely that someone here can help. I have a 190 series with 90-degree column, for example...

Having said all I did above, IMO Manfrotto provides a pretty good product, I'd give them a B+ for most of their products, and a C- for the US service organization.

Yea OP how about providing the model number of your tripod...

If OP was as "detailed" regarding the model of tripod he needed help with in his contact with Manfrotto, manfrotto is hardly to blame..

Sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear, it is the 90 degree mechanism I can't put back together again, not any other part of the tripod. As this mechanism is exactly identical in every tripod that has it, I thought anyone with a tripod with a 90 degree feature could help. I didn't think knowing if the legs were made of 055 aluminum, 190 aluminum, or carbon fiber would be that useful. But what do I know... it's a mtx055xpro3.

An actually useful detail I left out here, which I did naturally include in my enquiries to Manfrotto, is that it is part #R103908 specifically that I cannot reincorporate. I know where it goes, and can put it there, however it would appear that with it in place, the mechanism as a whole cannot slide fully seated into place. Interestingly, I can leave this piece out, seat the mechanism, and APPARENTLY use the tripod as originally designed. But I think I know better than to suppose this piece doesn't serve a vital function of some kind which would become painfully apparent down the line at some point : P

strider42 wrote in post #17991408
But what do I know... it's a mtx055xpro3.

Being able to use the column horizontally is not a new feature per se, the Q90 column design is fairly new yet not 100% identical in terms of revisions and model's between tripods.

Maybe take a picture illustrating the part (guide piece) you can't fit this would probably increase the chances of gettings some tips and advice.

Parts sheet or break down .

https://www.manfrottos​pares.com/055xprob-parts.html

Send it to me I can put it together for you if you have all the parts ...

Since your at it, consider leaving it off and converting to columnless.

https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1363521

yes this sheet is where I got the part # from, unfortunately the diagram merely shows what it looks like when taken apart, which I'm already quite familiar with as I look at it : / And it's easy to put it together. The trouble is, with this small piece here.

This is the ONLY way it fits in. But because of it, the mechanism cannot seat itself fully into the housing (see next photos)

Here is as far as it goes when attempting to seat with that piece in place. There is also only one way the mechanism is "allowed" to go in, indicated by an arrow on the redpart which you can see, and an indention of the same shape in the circle of the tripod, which you can't really see here, but they are lined up, and it will not seat. I have tried rotating it around all degrees also, just in case, but it won't go down in any placing.

This is the mechanism seated "properly" in place, minus that piece.

And here is the disassembled mechanism. It seems painfully simple, there appears to be only one possible way to put it together, but for some reason, I simply cannot figure out how to get it back into the legs. At the top end, the red casing, the upper end of it is so wide, that it can't clear through the column hole. This means the mechanism can only be seated from the top down. The ring you see is what binds the mechanism together. It too is too wide to go through the column hole, so it can only be attached after the mechanism is already seated. The two red pieces only fit together one way, because they have a hole on either side that corresponds in specific shape to the piece with two knobs that is attached to the center column. The tiny piece can only fit as pictured, because if turned around the extending edge is pressed against the center column and therefore the red housing pieces cannot fit around it.