Disassembly - JeanRichard JR1000 automatic / power reserve

[sstakoff]

Hi - I recently serviced a JeanRichard JR1000. I was unable to find any technical documentation in the usual locations, so I had to wing it. In the end, there were no real surprises, except the reassembly of the power reserve mechanism was a but tricky. I invented my own procedure for this which I will explain later. This watch is a limited edition - #13 of 50 produced. On arrival the watch would not run for more than a few seconds.

 

 

After removing the back, you can see here that the movement is secured with 4 case clips. The screws on the outer perimeter seem to secure the crystal/bezel to the case proper. That said, after removing them I was unable to separate the case. I decided to leave it be instead of risking damage. Once I removed the case screws and clips, the movement and its retainer were easily removed. Next step was to remove the hands in the normal fashion.

 

Removing the 2 screws indicated by tweezers below freed the movement from the substantial retainer. This assembly really holds the movement VERY securely in place.

 

Removing the dial is done in the normal fashion - 2 screws on the side of the movement (not shown). Once removed you can see the power reserve mechanism along with connecting lever that couples the mechanism with the power reserve indicator hand.  I removed the plastic "track" that the indicator lever travels in by removing the 2 small screws and lifting up. Not pictured below, the lever is also easily removed from the plastic traveler. There is another component that the lever attaches to on the underside. Make sure you pay attention to the orientation of this component when removing - it is asymmetric. I failed to do this, but it's pretty simple to deduce the correct orientation on assembly.

 

Also - remove the thin plastic (teflon?) sheet that I assume is a friction reducer.

 

The rotor is removed by removing the 3 small retaining screws.

 

Next up is the reversing wheel - part of the automatic mechanism. Remove the screw indicated below, slide the retaining clip out and then remove the wheel.

 

Here's the underside of the reversing wheel. On reassembly on treated with Lubeta V105.

 

Remove the balance and pallets - normal procedure - obviously after letting down the power in the mainspring!  After removal, I put a slight wind on the
mainspring, but no power was transmitted to the train - so clearly there is something very wrong here! That said, I don't see anything obvious in terms
of broken teeth, loose parts, etc.

 

Remove the train bridge and then remove the balance hack (pointed to by tweezers)

 

 

There's a bit of disassembly to do on the reverse side of the train bridge. Start by removing the single blue screw and the small bridge that it secures.

 

Remove the 2 small brass gears.

And the remaining components. Note the dial washer that sits beneath one of the gears.

 

Remove the escape wheel and the barrel bridge.

 

The click and clickspring are on the reverse side of the barrel bridge. They should be removed (no pic)

 

Remove the train gears and the center seconds pinion. And at this point I see the issue with the movement. The barrel is frozen in place. The 
lower bearing seems to have some material, like gunk, that has seized up and is restricting its movement. I had to use a bit of force to dislodge 
the barrel from the main plate. I didn't see any notable permanent damage - just a large deposit of dirt and grease.

 

After wrestling the barrel from the main plate, remove the arbor and spring. Note the arbor has a small independently rotating section on it as well.
You can see it as brass on in the pic below.

 

So far so good - let's flip the movement over and focus on the dial side. This power reserve mechanism requires some exploration. I am using the 
tweezers below to point out the orientation that the mechanism is in when there is no power in the mainspring. Note that I actually took this pic
before disassembling the other side of the watch - while the barrel and train were still in the watch. Remove the 2 small screws and the retaining 
plate.

 

Lift the mechanism as a unit out of the watch. You need to wiggle it a bit to get it out. The reason for this will be apparent soon.

 

The small gear remaining below actually fits between 2 of the gears in the mechanism removed above.

 

The reverse of the reserve mechanism. Nothing to disassemble here - I just cleaned it as a unit.

 

Remove the 3 screws and the calendar plate.

 

Remove the hour wheel and the two date maintaining plates, followed by the date ring.

 

Remove the minute wheel, intermediate gears and the date change gear. We also remove the date jumper and the small date setting gear that is held in place
by the jumper.

 

Remove the cannon pinion and its attached gear along with the date advancement gear. We now have just the keyless work remaining!

 

Next up is the setting lever spring

 

Next remove the yoke

 

Now the setting lever and the remaining lever. Finally the winding pinion and the sliding pinion.

 

And that's the full disassembly of this very nice movement.

I mentioned earlier that I needed to be a bit creative reassembling the reserve mechanism. Since the reserve mechanism is replaced after the calendar plate is installed,
the jewels on the dial side must already be lubricated (since they will be hidden by the calendar plate). So this implies that the barrel and wheel train are already installed.
Problem is that with the barrel installed it is very difficult to get the reserve mechanism seated correctly. I ended up doing the following:

1. Reassemble the wheel train and barrel.
2. Lubricate all dial side jewels and bearings
3. Install the calendar mechanism 
4. Remove the barrel and train of wheels. Note that the issue is really the barrel, but you cannot remove the barrel without also removing the train
5. Now it is trivial to install the reserve mechanism and orient it as mentioned at the time it was disassembled
6. Taking care not to allow the reserve mechanism to rotate (and become misaligned), reinstall the train and barrel
 

And that's all there is to it!
 

Hopefully someone finds this useful. At the end of the day, the watch now runs perfectly after a good cleaning and lubrication.

Stu...