Rust in oscillating weight pinion- Rolex 3130

[Cmmb8519]

Dear community,

Finally convinced my wife that my amateur skills are good enough to service her Rolex Air King 3130. The watch has 10 years and this is the first service.

When removing the oscillating weight i noted that it was quite stuck and there was rust in the pinion (photo attached after cleaning with rodico - there was more rust before).

In the Rolex oiling instructions they suggest HP1000 to lubrificate the pinion.

Apart from a good clean and HP1000, is there anything else i should be doing to avoid the rust to come back again?

Many thanks 

[JohnR725]

If you would like to avoid rust in the watch you have to avoid water in the watch.. This means If you are are doing a overhaul you want to change all of the gaskets and do a water resistance test.  If you send the Rolex out for commercial servicing they always test the water resistance..

Then there's the other itsy-bitsy thing what is the recommended Time between  servicing?  Typically  and you see this in  watch collecting groups with automatic watches they have a potential of running a very long time until they stop.  They will run away past life of the gaskets and the lubrication in the watch.. Which leads to an unfortunate consequence of  a lot of times they basically disintegrate and very unhappy collectors  that the watchmakers greedy wanting so much money to service their watch  at least what's left of it.

[clockboy]

This is one area where I think Rolex got the design wrong. If you google you will find how if not lubricated and serviced  this pinion not only can rust but can wear away and has to be replaced. Cousins sell them but replacing this pinion without distorting the rotor weight is a challenge. 

[rodabod]

Does anyone know why they rust? Hygroscopic oil or oil that has turned acidic? Usually only natural oils do that. 

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, rodabod said:

Does anyone know why they rust? Hygroscopic oil or oil that has turned acidic? Usually only natural oils do that. 

what we need is a service guideline by Rolex for the watch was manufactured. Not the current service guide because more likely they change their recommendations. So for instance we see above the recommending an HP oil could they have recommended D5 at one time? That would give you your organic components.

Then one of the issues with servicing watches if you've ever been to a lecture where they explain high cost of servicing a Rolex watch is a lot of the components are meant to be replaced. Which is also why those components are available. It's one of my concerns as they extend the service life where lubrication really can't necessarily last for 10 years the assumption from the factory may be that you will just replace all the faulty components.

So this means for us unless you want to be replacing stuff if you know it's a problem then maybe the next servicing should be five years from now.

[clockboy]

When Rolex is serviced by Rolex they now change the hands for new and they replace any part that shows signs of wear also when returned it looks like a new watch. Hence the price. Independents can not compete with this as parts are not available but can offer a lower price.