Rolex 2235 Date Corrector Not Engaging

[YOTTi]

Hello everyone! Just joined the forum. I am a fairly experienced semi-professional watchmaker that has been working with watches for quite some time and am stumped by the following problem.

I am working on a Rolex cal. 2235 and have completely assembled and lubricated the watch per guidelines. Once assembled I noticed in the quick-set (2nd) position of the crown that the seems to spin freely without the date corrector sliding over appropriately to engage the date wheel and quickly cycle the date. I thought that it was the small spring washer underneath the date corrector wheel, so I shaped it slightly after disassembly and found that the date corrector properly engages and disengages with the wheel on the setting lever spring properly. The date corrector then slid into place and functioned how it was supposed to. I cycled through the stem positions and tested, it checked out. 

Here is the weird thing, once I cased the movement back up, it no longer engaged. I took the watch apart again to find that the date corrector no longer engaged yet again. I removed and replaced it and I would say it is intermittent at best. 

Honestly, I am extremely confused and frustrated at this point (many hours into this) and am about to replace the Date Corrector and the Setting Lever entirely to hopefully fix the problem. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Please and thank you!

[Nucejoe]

 No Rolex expert, but how about pictures or vid of what you are seeing and we are not? 

  Some  folks post vids on you tube and gives the link to it, thats if you run into problem posting on your thread.

Good luck pal.

And welcome to the WRT forum.

[YOTTi]

Thank you for the advice!

Essentially this Date Corrector wheel should slide back and forth depending on the Crown position to allow for quick-set of the Calendar Wheel. For some reason it will only slide to the correct position intermittently or not at all. If I manually push it into the location it works perfectly, it just doesn’t seem to want to engage properly.

Completely stumped on this one! Any help would be awesome!

[Kalanag]

Do not use any oil on this wheel. The wheel has to slide completely free. Oil keeps the wheel sticking on the plates.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Kalanag

[YOTTi]

22 hours ago, Kalanag said:

Do not use any oil on this wheel. The wheel has to slide completely free. Oil keeps the wheel sticking on the plates.

Thank YOU!!! It worked!

I have seen videos of people oiling these posts and never thought about that unintended consequence! Extremely appreciative