Timex M33 - A small repair

[VascoF]

HI everyone

Some context:

I'm "in love" with old Timex.

As someone who has always liked watches, I knew Timex (my first watch and another project) but, in fact, the brand had never really caught my attention. By pure chance I bought, in a set of two others watches, a small m24 that was sold as not working (run and stop), which actually started working by setting the date by manually moving the hands (15 days).

This coincidence made me interested in its history, its reputation, simplicity/complexity of the movements and also because some were made in Portugal back in 70’s and 80’s.
A few days later I found this beautiful 1975 Viscount, m33 (very low price, almost offered) and this is where I need your help.  It is in very good condition and works well (-20s per day is not a problem for me), and although the day of the week changes correctly, the date is "stuck" on the 10th.

I live in a small town that only has one watchmaker and when I purchased this watch (and having read about these movements) I thought that since it was something theoretically "simple" (probably not related to the movement), he would easily solve the problem. I couldn't be more wrong. It was as if I had proposed a pact with the devil. He refused and said he wouldn't touch the watch (although he had serviced several of my watches before - Seikos and old Swiss brands). He suggested I wear the watch like this or trash it.

As I mentioned in my presentation to the forum, I have some experience in digital watches, but in manual watches I am a complete beginner. I know how to remove hands, crowns and little else.
I've been doing my homework, reading the technical manual and watching a few videos on YouTube. I think I can get to the part of removing the dial without any major problems.

I know that in the Date Frame there is a wheel that at the top has a tab that activates the Day Wheel and that at the bottom activates the Date Lever

My aim is to try not to ruin anything and  get the date working again. The help I needed (I intend to post photos) is that what should I expect? What are the most common problems that cause this system to get stuck (in this case just the date).

 

PS -  My secondary objective is to buy a strap at a overpriced value from the watchmaker just to rub it in his face that I managed to get the watch working properly.

PS2 - In the photos you can see that before midnight the day of the week is already changing but the day of the month has not changed.

 

Sorry about the english.

Best Regards

Vasco

 

[mbwatch]

Hi there!

You have learned how professional watchmakers feel about Timex. It is very difficult to find one willing to work on them, for a few reasons:
1) a lot of them wrongly believe Timex cannot be serviced, are riveted together. This is a myth.

2) when serviced, they still cannot meet the performance standards of jeweled mechanical watches (-20sec/day is good enough for a Timex)

3) customers are unwilling to pay the watchmaker's hourly bench rates because the watches are worth very little

The service manual for the M33 is available at https://heritage1854.com/m33 but you also need the M32 and M31 manuals because they build on each other (31 is the base, 32 has date, 33 has day and date) https://heritage1854.com/m31 https://heritage1854.com/m32

A stuck date changeover can be due to a missing, bent or broken detent spring (part 2576 in the manual) or the date wheel (2556) got stuck or separated from its post, or maybe disengaged from the hour wheel.

With a little confidence, these are not difficult to repair and parts are pretty much interchangeable with any other Timex from the same era having the same features. So it is very easy to find inexpensive spares in the form of junk watches (don't bother trying to search for individual spare parts).

My recommendation would be to find a junk Timex with an M25 (older manual wind with date) and practice a little with it. Follow the service manual from the same website. The automatics are a bit more difficult to work on but once you get a feel for how they fit together, you can make an attempt at your automatic and you would be able to use many spare parts from the M25 if necessary.

To work with most Timex movements, you do not need a lot of tools. Just one screwdriver, 1.4mm is a good size, tweezers, and hand levers to remove the hands plus hand pusher tools to replace them. Of course if you want to do a full cleaning and restoration more is needed. But to get it apart and diagnose, only minimal tools.

[VascoF]

Hi everyone,

An update.

First of all, I would like to thank you for the information provided, it was very useful help.

I was supposed to take more photos but with the beginner’s stress I ended up forgetting. 
The watch was assembled in a Timex factory in Portugal (my country), 50 years ago (a piece of history that no longer exists)

I followed the procedure described in the technical manual until the part of removing the hands (were misaligned) .

At that time I noticed that the Date lever was out of place. Once placed correctly, everything was ok and the date started to change correctly.

Since I had removed the hands, I adjusted the change of day and day of the week, which was changing too early and cleaned the dial.

At this point I thought everything was ok, but during tests to check if the day and date were changing at the correct time I noticed that the movement was slightly loose (the movement wobbles in relation to the Date Frame on the opposite side to the crown).

I ended up closing the watch and leaving it like that and trying to use it. It turns out that although, when the day and date were set, everything worked as expected the next day the date didn't change. I opened  it and I noticed that  the Date Lever moved back out of place again (photo).

My conclusion is that a screw is missing (5145/1 - Pillar screw (short)) and this creates a gap between the movement and the Date frame, causing the Date lever to move out of place with normal wrist use. Over the weekend I will try to see if everything works correctly without wearing it on my wrist.

If it is confirmed that a screw is missing, can anyone tell me if it is the same one used to screw in the rotor?  If that's the case, my best guess is to remove one of the screws from the rotor, take it to the watchmaker and see if he can get me one of identical dimensions.

Any other ideas on what could cause the Date Lever to go out of place?

Regards Vasco

 

PS - Placing the second hand was a pain in the A**

[mbwatch]

44 minutes ago, VascoF said:

My conclusion is that a screw is missing (5145/1 - Pillar screw (short)) and this creates a gap between the movement and the Date frame, causing the Date lever to move out of place with normal wrist use. Over the weekend I will try to see if everything works correctly without wearing it on my wrist.

Your diagnosis of a missing screw is probably correct - the tip of it should be visible in your photo but is not. However, installing the screw still may not fix the problem if the Date Click Spring (2576) is worn out. Those very thin metal parts can wear down where they insert into the plate, causing them not to stay affixed as well as they should. But replacing the screw first would be good to test.

47 minutes ago, VascoF said:

If it is confirmed that a screw is missing, can anyone tell me if it is the same one used to screw in the rotor?  If that's the case, my best guess is to remove one of the screws from the rotor, take it to the watchmaker and see if he can get me one of identical dimensions.

I do not think it is the same screw as in the rotor. In the M31 diagrams, the rotor screws appear shorter than the "short" pillar screw. But the screw threads should be the same for all the pillar screws, for all Timex movements. If you obtained a junk Timex movement from ebay or elsewhere and removed one of the regular pillar screws (5100), I expect it would fit that hole. I think you could use any Timex >M24 mechanical movement to get a fitting screw. If it was too long protruding and interfered with something on the back of the movement (like the rotor), you could file the tip of the screw down until it no longer got in the way. I suggest this because again, I do not expect a watchmaker to be willing to help you source this part.

[AndyGSi]

To me the screw looks to be their, just not tightened down.

Photos without & with screw.

[mbwatch]

7 minutes ago, AndyGSi said:

Photos without & with screw.

Nice @AndyGSi. Since you have one on the bench, can you confirm if the other pillar screws would fit that hole's diameter & thread as I was speculating? In case the screw isn't there.

Edited 13 hours ago by mbwatch

[AndyGSi]

Difficult to photograph without my microscope but the threads are the same, just the head is slightly different.

Middle is the 5145/1

 

[VascoF]

Wow. Thank you both very much, I couldn't have asked for better help.
Now one question, to tighten the screw I have to remove the day and date wheels, right?

Newbie anxiety.

Regards Vasco

[mbwatch]

5 minutes ago, VascoF said:

, to tighten the screw I have to remove the day and date wheels, right?

Yes I believe you will. Apparently there is another thin spring under the day ring, so be prepared for that to fall out of position. Thinking back, I don't know that I have ever done the M33 Day/Date automatic to see how that part is arranged. I have only worked on the M32 date version.

[AndyGSi]

The spring should happily stay on the back of the day disc when removed.

This has been floating around in a box for a while.