Tudor Black Bay Ref 79220 Bezel Repair

[sstakoff]

Hi all. A friend recently bought a Tudor Black Bay ref 79220. He came to me last night with a problem. The rotating bezel had fallen off. Looking at the watch, I believe the issue is the nylon bezel retainer - it appears worn. I'm pretty confident I can find a generic replacement for that. What I'm not sure about is the springs that were also present. There are 4 holes in the watch case under the bezel at approx 1, 5, 7 and 11 o'clock. The one at 1 o'clock contains a compression spring with the ratchet click unit on top. The 5 and 7 o'clock holes simply contain a compression spring (one of which is damaged) and the 11 o'clock was empty - assuming the spring fell out.

 

What I'm not certain about was whether or not these other springs (5,7,11) are supposed to have any other part on top of the spring. It seems strange to just have the compression spring as I can see them getting mangled when rotating the bezel. I'm wondering if there were additional "covers" or something else that may have gotten lost when the bezel fell out.

 

I can post pics later, but was hoping this would resonate with someone from my description.

 

Appreciate your advice!!!

 

Stu

[sstakoff]

Here are some pics. You can see that the holes are actually at 2,5,8 and 11 o'clock. The hole at 2 o'clock is larger - and this is the hole that contained a spring with the ratchet/click device fitted over the spring. The second pic shows the 3 springs and the click device.

 

[clockboy]

Someone who has worked on one of these movements might know for certain but the springs must sit under the nylon ring to add tension to the bezel via the nylon ring.The other part must act as some sort of click but the hole seems the wrong shape to accommodate it.Does the underside of the bezel have teeth or is it smooth. I am intrigued to know the answer. 

The bezels I have found on the net have metal rings. The nylon one in your pic does not look correct

[sstakoff]

I realized this morning that I should have posted a pic of the underside of the bezel. Will do that tonight. The underside does indeed have teeth to accommodate the click. The hole at 2 o'clock is better illustrated in this pic. The click device fits over one of the compression springs and then fits perfectly into this hole. When I test fit the bezel the click action works fine. The nylon ring fits into a groove inside the bezel ring - there is a corresponding groove on the case itself below the crystal. I was expecting to find a metal retainer as well - or perhaps one of the 6 or so sided retention springs. The nylon seems to fit pretty well, but perhaps it was installed as a substitute for the metal retainer - which may explain why the bezel fell off in the first place!

[ro63rto]

Seems there are a few disgruntled Rolex/Tudor owners who have found out that at some point the metal retaing springs were replaced with plastic/rubber parts. A quick google revealed this.

Edited June 10, 2015 by ro63rto

[omgiv]

I haven't seen the underside of the Tudor's yet but the Rolex models have a small ball on the end of three of the springs. The nylon gasket should fit inside of the bezel and hold it onto the retaining ring. The gasket is supposedly a one time use item that is to be replaced every time the bezel is removed. I'm not a big fan of these new designs but the bezels are really smooth. Here is a bad picture of what the balls at the end of the three springs look like on another Rolex model.

[sstakoff]

This is very helpful!!! I am missing all the steel balls. You wouldn't happen to know the ball size, would you?

More pics of the Tudor:

 

 

[sstakoff]

Lots of information on this setup here:

http://www.replica-watch.info/vb/showthread.php/85735-RWI-DeepSea-116660-Mega-Thread-Gen-info-and-teardown-plus-rep-comparisons

[sstakoff]

Just when I thought I was all set - we found another part!!! This metal ring is exactly what I theorized I was looking for originally.

The part is setup with two small tabs on the inside to keep it from rotating, There is a slot to allow the click plunger to come through

and connect to the bezel teeth. What this means is that this setup probably does not use ball bearings at all! The compression springs

push the metal ring up to create tension on the bezel. As you can see the part is pretty bent up. My real dilemma now is trying to understand

if the correct shape is perfectly flat or if it should have some "wavy" curves to it in order to make it more springy....

 

Has anyone seen this type of setup???

 

 

[Dutch]

Hi, can I ask if you managed to find the plastic retaining ring - I am in a similar situation?

[sstakoff]

Nope :(. As it turns out, the owner was able to get the local Rolex store in Manhattan to do a courtesy repair on the watch.

Good luck!!!!

[Dutch]

Thanks for the reply. I was the thinking I could source the retaining ring from a similar Rolex parts store, but what model matches the Tudor- the Submariner ?

Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using Tapatalk

[Alex78]

I bought myself a Replica Rolex and there were no such breaks, so think about the quality of your Tudor

[Alex78]

and another one bought from here (***), too, no problem

[AndyHull]

On 12/26/2018 at 3:12 PM, Alex78 said:

I bought myself a Replica Rolex and there were no such breaks, so think about the quality of your Tudor

I have nothing against "replica" "homage" or whatever, but the simple fact is, that if a genuine Rolex, Omega, {insert name here} breaks, then you will generally have fewer issues getting matching spare parts  than you will with the faux version.

As to Tudor's quality, I can't say I'm impressed with the plastic bits, but then again pretty much any watch produced in the last 30 years, has some plastic component in it.

Horses for courses though. No amount of whataboutery will ever convince me that a copy of an Omega, no matter how good, will survive as long as the real thing. Neither will it hold its value. Sadly a Skoda with a Rolls Royce badge on it is still a Skoda, and much as I like Skodas, the Roller will still be worth more in ten years time (even if it is made by BMW ).