Bulova accutron spaceview 214 hands stop working every period amount of time.

[Moussab59]

I bought a fully restored Bulova accutron spaceview 214 a couple of months ago. A beautiful watch with an amazing history.

The hands started to fail by not turning, and once i give it a small shake, it starts working again. Even though the hands stop moving, i can still hear it humming. 

I thought it might be the battery dying, so i changed it with the recommended accucell-1 1.35 silver oxide battery. Unfortunately as before i face the same problem again, it works for a couple of hours and then it just stops until i give it a light touch or shake.

I would appreciate it if you could help shed some light on this issue and how i can go about resolving it, thank you.

[CornishPirate]

Had this problem a few weeks ago with my own 218.

Make sure that nothing is making contact with the case back and the gasket is installed properly.

On mine, I’d not got the gasket on properly, the watch would run fine with the back and gasket off, but stop the minute both were back on. Took a bit of fiddling to get them back on in a way the my accutron liked. Seemed to be very little rhyme or reason to it either, but it’s worth noting my accutron doesn’t have the original gasket with it either.

[nickelsilver]

The 214 is much more sensitive to the adjustment of the index and pawl jewels than the 218 (phasing). Even with the Accucell with corrected voltage, it can be tricky to get it just right. If the depthing of the jewels is a little light and if there is the smallest bit of wear on the index wheel it can cause what you are seeing. It hangs up at a tooth on the index wheel, and a shake or tap might get it to skip, and it might go along fine for a while until it doesn't index and there it sticks.

That said, another possible issue is the hands or canon pinion/hour wheel. The 214 has a sort of traditional canon pinion which fits to the center wheel, but the friction/slipping actually happens with a clutch between the center post and the wheel itself. It is a very light friction (to protect the index wheel when setting time). It's rare for that friction to become too light, but on a Spaceview it's the minute hand that is keeping the hour wheel in place. If it was fit slightly too close to the hour wheel or has a little burr or something, it could intermittently bind. Just a little friction there can overcome the friction at the center wheel and the wheel train will slip, continuing to run while not moving the hands.