Low amplitude in '67 Timex #31

[JayS]

Been struggling through a number of #31 movements. This particular one was bought as a "running" watch, but it's been anemic from the start with some 80° of amplitude, just no momentum at all. I've cleaned it, oiled it, checked it and repeated some 3 times now, with nothing seeming to help.

One thing I've noticed is that the unlubricated movement always sticks hard on the trailing palette pin. Give the pin or balance wheel a flick and the escapement wheel kicks the first pin out easily and then hangs on the 2nd. I've lubed the pins before (which is a bit tough) and this (along with other general oiling) gets it going with the poor amplitude, but never for long.

Could the pin be bent in towards the wheel? Doesn't look it. Hairspring seems nicely shaped. I've lubed both pivots of the balance shaft and attempted to remove end-shake, but that adjustable brass pivot is getting pretty mauled.

I'm really trying to avoid taking this movement apart completely. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[watchweasol]

Hi Take all the power off the movement and check where the pallet lies. If it constantly lies on one side even after moving it manually its probably off beat,   If you had the balance out it may not be pinned back in the on beat position. worth checking out. The pallet should lie central  between the banking pins at rest.

[Nucejoe]

Oiling pallet pins directly is not recommended, oil escape teeth, If it didn't run then the fault is something else.

Bent pivot, out of beat, no endshake on balance staff or escape wheel or fork arbour, something rubbing .. are the suspects line up. Haha

Normally out of beat balance dose a few swings, that it ALWAYS sticks hard on the trailing pin, points out to the pin itself.

I would take out the ( balance cock) assembly and nudge the fork to do its jumps, if the trailing pivot keeps on sticking, you have located the fault.

Balance pivot, impulse pin and escape pivot should fall on a straight line, otherwise impulse pin is out of beat.

 

[JohnR725]

what you using to time the watches?  then did you service the watch like take it all apart clean it?

 

https://17jewels.info/movements/t/timex/timex-m31/

[watchweasol]

Hi  I have attached the timex 31 service manual for you  incase you dont have it.

31.pdf

[Marc]

3 hours ago, watchweasol said:

 If you had the balance out it may not be pinned back in the on beat position

If beat error does turn out to be the issue then you may find that Timex have been particularly helpful.

At some point Timex very helpfully marked some of their balances with a little notch in the rim to assist in positioning the hair spring so that the balance would be in beat.

Assuming the hair spring is not distorted then if you line the pinning point up with the notch you should be as close to being in beat as needed for the watch to run. A little fine tuning may help if you have a TimeGrapher to check beat error.

I don't know when Timex did this, or on which calibers. I'm pretty certain that it's not on everything though.

This balance is from a 1970's M25, and the notch seems to have been there on most of the M24 and M25 movements that I have played with.

It is possible that I have got this wrong as I've not seen this written down anywhere, but I have done an awful lot of Timex's and wherever the notch has been present, aligning the h/s as described has had the watch in beat.

@JerseyMo may be able to provide a more authoritative comment.

[JerseyMo]

14 minutes ago, Marc said:

If beat error does turn out to be the issue then you may find that Timex have been particularly helpful.

At some point Timex very helpfully marked some of their balances with a little notch in the rim to assist in positioning the hair spring so that the balance would be in beat.

Assuming the hair spring is not distorted then if you line the pinning point up with the notch you should be as close to being in beat as needed for the watch to run. A little fine tuning may help if you have a TimeGrapher to check beat error.

I don't know when Timex did this, or on which calibers. I'm pretty certain that it's not on everything though.

This balance is from a 1970's M25, and the notch seems to have been there on most of the M24 and M25 movements that I have played with.

It is possible that I have got this wrong as I've not seen this written down anywhere, but I have done an awful lot of Timex's and wherever the notch has been present, aligning the h/s as described has had the watch in beat.

@JerseyMo may be able to provide a more authoritative comment.

yes that bend is so helpful when lining up the spring to the wedge pin hole.  When you get it right it only takes about a half turn of the balance and it all comes together.  than of course the wedge pin decides to take a trip off the tip of the tweezers.

[JayS]

8 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Hi  I have attached the timex 31 service manual for you  incase you dont have it.

31.pdf 3.45 MB · 1 download

Thank you! I was able to hunt that down, otherwise I could never have screwed up as many watches as I have...

[JayS]

10 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

what you using to time the watches?  then did you service the watch like take it all apart clean it?

 

https://17jewels.info/movements/t/timex/timex-m31/

I don't have anything to time the watches properly. The best I can do is video the balance wheel and estimate how much of an arc it's sweeping. I didn't take this one apart to clean, but just gave it a lighter fluid bath. Didn't want to mess with it too much.

[JayS]

11 hours ago, watchweasol said:

Hi Take all the power off the movement and check where the pallet lies. If it constantly lies on one side even after moving it manually its probably off beat,   If you had the balance out it may not be pinned back in the on beat position. worth checking out. The pallet should lie central  between the banking pins at rest.

The pallet appears to lie in line.

What I am noticing is that the balance wheel is never turning enough to release the roller pin and passing hollow from the pallet. It's more or less just twitching back and forth...

[JohnR725]

the reason I asked about the timing machine was that I'm not sure if you can actually time of pin lever watch you get the proper amplitude. Then even if you can the Chinese timing machine doesn't like to go that low and won't give you the correct number anyway.

Even with your lighter fluid you should think about ultrasonic cleaner of some type. Because older watches coils are going to just rinse away without a little help in an ultrasonic we get into all the cracks and crannies and help that to go away.

 

[JayS]

6 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

the reason I asked about the timing machine was that I'm not sure if you can actually time of pin lever watch you get the proper amplitude. Then even if you can the Chinese timing machine doesn't like to go that low and won't give you the correct number anyway.

Even with your lighter fluid you should think about ultrasonic cleaner of some type. Because older watches coils are going to just rinse away without a little help in an ultrasonic we get into all the cracks and crannies and help that to go away.

 

I did clamp an old dremel tool to my workbench and then clamped the container with the lighter fluid so that it was resting on it. At one of the higher RPMs, the fluid was filled with tons of tiny, crisscrossing waves with little droplets bouncing all over the top. Not sure if it qualified as ultrasonic, but there was a hole lot of shaking going on...

[JohnR725]

there is been more than one watch cleaning machine company and have made devices that vibrate when they spin. But I'm still a big fan of ultrasonic and commercial watch cleaning solutions.

Although for watch like this it's apparently now discontinued which explains why can't find it except here. although apparently is not frowned upon by clock repair people because that still is available and for the material safety sheet it looks like it's probably similar formula. Usually frowned upon by the modern watchmaking community. but on a watch like a Timex where you really don't want to take it all the way apart it would lubricated everything. Although usually are supposed to take the balance wheel out and either not run it through the final rinse or rinse it off afterwards.

https://www.hswalsh.com/product/lr-solo-lube-hf605

https://lrultrasonics.com/solutions/clock-lube-136