Repairing a Steelfish (2836-2) with Low Power Reserve

[onzenuub 307]

And a next outstandig one from Francisco:

 

 

A forum member sent me his Breitling Steelfish with the problem of having a poor power reserve.

 

The movement is a clone ETA 2836-2. The following video shows why the watch has a low power reserve:

 

 

As seen, when the watch is horizontal and the rotor turns to wing the movement, the rotor spins, in fact unwinding the movement. This only happens when the watch is more or less horizontal (rotor has not vertical weight). Therefore, in the real life, only when the owner is wearing the watch horizontally and he moves the arm, the movement will loose power reserve.

 

 

REPAIR

 

This behaviour shows a problem in the reversing wheel(s). Therefore, we have to swap the defective reversing wheel to repair it. After removing the case back we see the clone ETA 2836-2 movement

 

 

The rotor is removed:

 

 

The two red arrows show the two reversing wheels (RWs) of this movement.

 

Green arrows in following picture show the holes of the screws to be removed. Then we will be able to remove a module where the RWs are located,

 

 

The module is shown in the two following pictures:

 

 

 

Green arrow in previous picture shows a screw to be removed to free the RWs. In next picture this screw and a jewelled plate that fastens the RWs have been removed.

 

 

Next step is to remove a gear above of one of the RWs:

 

 

Therefore, now the RWs can be removed, shown on the right:

 

 

Next step would be buying the spares RWs. As you can imagine only one of the RWs is defective (not very probable both RWs defective at the same time). Unfortunately, the most expensive is which has problems. The other one, quite cheap, is perfect. However, as the price is low I will swap both.

 

Top face of both RWs is practically equal, as seen in previous picture. However, if we look to bottom face,

 

 

one of them has a pinion. This is very important, because the pinion is the only way to distinguish them when looking for their references.

 

Cousinsuk.com parts numbers

 

To search for spares for ETA 2836-2 we have to take into account that many parts of this movement are not listed, because these parts are compatible with ETA 2820. Hence, in this case we have to know that RWs of 2820 and 2836 are the same pieces.

 

Searching at cousinsuk produces this list:

 

ETA28201530 ETA 2820 1530 Auto Reverser Wheel Without Pinion £2.95

 

ETA282014885 ETA 2820 1488.5 Auto Reverser Wheel with Pinion and Jewels £12.95

 

ETA28201488 ETA 2820 1488 Auto Reverser Wheel with Pinion £4.50

 

There are two references of RWs with pinion and one without pinion. Therefore, the reference for the without pinion RW is clear.

 

And with pinion we have tow references: one without jewels (cheap) and one with jewels (expensive). The clone has a jewelled RW, therefore, we should buy the jewelled one. However, I bought all the references, to check if the RW without jewels is fully compatible.

 

Next picture shows a comparison of Asian / ETA RWs with pinion:

 

 

As seen, the only way to distinguish them is counting the number of holes. Some time ago this difference was commented by one dealer in this picture, to detect a clone ETA 2836:

 

 

Following picture shows a comparison of the two ETA RWs with pinion, jewelled and not jewelled:

 

 

As seen, the jewels seem to be the only difference. I have checked that the not jewelled RW works flawlessly. Therefore, which one to use? Being honest, if this were my watch I would use the cheapest one, because for me to repair it again in the future is not a problem. However, for a forum member we have to employ the best spare available.

 

Assembling again the RWs is very easy; we only have to follow the same steps back. Therefore, this work is not shown.

 

As a curiosity, the hands of the watch were damaged:

 

 

 

As previous picture show, lume is very dark and some oxide is visible on the hands. Therefore, we are going to remove the oxide and to re-lume.

 

Old lume is removed employing acetone:

 

 

Oxide is removed employing Cape Cod:

 

 

Re-luming:

 

 

The watch has been repaired:

 

 

 

Best wishes,

 

Francisco

[greg_r 81]

Good one, Francisco!

 

(Thanks, Onze, for the repost).

[Massimo 53]

 

Outstanding post.

[Member X 91]

That's awesome

 

I think I have that unwinding problem on my BP