Girard-Perregaux 101-274 (Peseux 7001) Crown Fix

[tigerbearfrog]

Looking to the watch community for help with this (hopefully simple) repair -

I recently bought a Girard-Perregaux 3719 dress watch however the crown was loose from the movement and comes completely out of the watch.  The movement appears to be a Girard-Perregaux 101-274 (Peseux 7001): http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db.cgi?10&ranfft&0&2uswk&Girard-Perregaux_101.  I think everything is in-tact, though I am not 100% certain as I'm not a professional watchmaker, though I have no reason to believe any parts are missing.

I am wondering whether this may be something I can fix myself fairly easily, perhaps by simply tightening a screw, or if this is something that will require more work by a professional watchmaker.  If this is a relatively easy fix what specifically should I do myself to fix the watch or, alternatively, what must I instruct a watchmaker to do for this watch?  If this does require being taken-in to a shop, what will need to be done and what can I expect to pay or such a repair?

As an aside, does anyone know what year this watch is from?  What do the marks inside the caseback mean - I know these are service marks with dates but does this provide any additional information I can be made aware of as an amateur watch hobbyist?  Finally, what is the approximate resale value of this watch if I can get it working again?

Thanks in advance for your assistance!

[WatchMaker]

Hopefully this is something simple!

The crown is actually the round part that you turn ... which is affixed to the stem which goes into the watch. From your description it is the latter which you can pull clean out of the watch.

If you look in the diagram attached it is the screw A that needs to be tightened on the back of the movement to secure the stem. This screw pulls the setting lever inwards where point B of the setting lever 'locks' into a groove in the stem. You will have to ensure that your stem is fully pushed in to locate the groove in the stem.

You may be unlucky  - and I've come across it before - where someone has over-tightened the screw to the extent the setting lever has actually been split int two.To replace this is more involved as the dial and hands must come off in order to gain access to the broken part. But let's hope you've got a nice simple problem to solve as outlined above and it's simply the tightening of a screw that's needed!

As to the value of your watch I'm not the best person to comment as I do watch making and repairs as a hobby purely for my own amusement. You could look at ebay for 'sold listings' and try and find a watch similar to yours to get an idea I guess...

[WatchMaker]

You'll appreciate from the pictures you've sent it's not possible to tell what's going on internally in the watch. But with some basic checking we can do some easy checks.

The picture below is what your stem should look like. If we work from the right hand side there's i) the screw thread the crown attaches to; ii) a smooth piece before iii) the groove I talked about in my earlier reply moving to iv) the square part of the stem that interfaces with the winding clutch.

First thing is let's just check your stem isn't broken i.e. does it look like the one in the attached diagram and isn't bent or broken in some way?

Assuming that's all good then next compare the picture in my original posting and your first picture. You'll notice that what I refer to as "ii)" above isn't nearly far enough into your watch movement. If this is representative of how far you can push the stem into the movement then this is definitely something we'll need to look at.

1) Remove the stem completely

2) Now completely tighten the screw i.e. turn clockwise until you can't turn any more. If the screw just turns and turns it means it has separated from the setting lever. That's a whole other problem but let's assume you can tighten it fully. Okay so now...

3) Untighten the screw one complete 360 degree revolution.

4) Place the stem in and gently wiggle and slightly turn to locate it. Does the smooth piece protrude to roughly that shown in the diagram I included with my original reply?

5) Yes = now tighten the screw completely. No = unitighten the screw just a little bit more ... but no more than a quarter or half a turn otherwise you have a danger of separating it from the setting lever; repeat 4.

Any luck?!