ETA 980.163 Order of Assembly?

[Tracy]

I have dissembled, cleaned and reassembled my first movement—an ETA 980.163. With my lack of experience it took me about a month working off and on. It’s hard to appreciate just how small the parts are until one has to try to handle them and place them in the movement. Anyway, I assembled the watch and it runs (for now) I tried to be careful about keeping everything clean but I may have introduced more dirt than I cleaned out of the components/movement.

I had a question about the order of reassembly. I used the ETA Technical Communication guide to assist me in remembering where the components went as well as the order of how to assemble them. When assembling the train wheels I followed the “order of assembly” and discovered that assembly of two of the train wheels seems to be out of the correct order. I have pictures and screen shots from the guide for reference (I used an ETA 980.153 because I found pictures of the movement online—it’s basically the same as the 980.163. Here is the link to the ETA 980.153 guide.

The order of assembly calls for the second wheel (19) then the third wheel (20) followed by the intermediate wheel (21) in that order. If this order is followed 20 is placed between 21 and 19. This causes two problems: 1) the small gear on 21 will not engage wheel 19 because it’s too high, and 2) the pivot on 21 is too high when trying to place the train bridge. The image shows the correct assembly and is as follows: the rotor (12) drives 21 which drives 19 (via the small gear not visible--under 21) then 19 drives 20. 

The assembly drawing clearly shows the wrong order for these wheels to engage correctly. I struggled for weeks trying to assemble it according to the ETA guide. Once I stopped doing that and actually looked at how the wheels engage I saw that the correct order of assembly is 19 – then 21 and finally 20. If I’m an idiot, or my lack of experience was causing my problem please tell me. The bottom line is that the movement runs (all the hands are going round and round as expected). Watch has been running for about 2 months now.

For Reference
19 second wheel
20 third wheel
21 intermediate wheel
12 rotor

[rogart63]

Not easy to follow that guide? With all those lines? I usually take a picture or lots of pictures when i take a movement apart? And i can go back and look how the wheels sit? If i forget to take a picture i could probably figure it out anyway? There is usually only one way which the wheels can be assembled? Good work  As you probably did it right? Otherwise it wouldn't have worked? 

Or google the net? Pictures like this could help a lot? Even if i don't speak italiano  http://www.orologiko.it/forum/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=6525

Edited March 5, 2017 by rogart63

[Tracy]

I thought with the Swiss having their trains run precisely on time, and manufacturing watches for over 250 years, that they would have the instructions for one of their movements as the ultimate guide for assembly. So much for assumptions!