The slight haze, localised at the edges of the internal meniscus is still there (probably oxidised coating ? ), I could not get rid of it, so I decided to leave it as is for now.
However, this does not affect the image quality a lot... if any at all.
After re-assembling the whole thing together, here is the first result: Not bad for $100 lens, not bad at all
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I am happy with the whole exercise.
The composite picture, with crops (100% size) from corresponding parts of the frame is attached. It is a stack of 10x10 sec frames, no darks and no flats, with external f/5.6 aperture (because I removed all the un-necessary guts from the lens)
It is probably inferior to it's twin brother ("L" version), but it is definitely good enough for everything I intend to use it for in the future.
The adapter assembly and fogged internal lens pics are also attached.