Tudor 7017 Automatic Day Date (A Schild 1895) – Service

Under the loupe today is a very nice Tudor 7017 Automatic Day Date.  A very attractive watch, sometimes referred to as the “jumbo” owing to its large proportions by vintage standards. The watch came in for a service and, whilst it was ticking, the hour and minute hands were no longer moving, more on this later.

Tudor 7017

 

I start by opening the caseback, this is the famous Rolex Oyster case design.

 

This reveals the movement. It is based on an A. Schild 1895 calibre, although the Tudor version is much better finished than the standard ebauche. Vintage Tudor

 

Dial and movement out of the case, ready to carefully remove the hands from the dial.

 

Here you can see the day star. This one is in Italian which makes a nice change. I really like the layout of the day complication on Rolex and Tudor watches, with the display at the top of the dial.Vintage Tudor Service

 

I start stripping down the dial side.A. Schild 1895

 

I mentioned before that the seconds hand is ticking, but the hour and minutes hand are not moving. This is a typical symptom of a slipping cannon pinion. This movement has an offset cannon pinion, and the friction has been lost after years of high pressure, metal to metal contact. The part can be tightened, but on this occasion with parts available I opt to replace intermediate wheel and cannon pinion for a durable solution. This effectively restores the friction as it would have been the day the watch came out of the factory.AS 1895 Cannon pinion

 

Lower side of the movement now nearly fully disassembled.

 

Moving on to the upper side, the oscillating weight, barrel, balance wheel and ratchet have been removed.AS 1895

 

 

A close up on the pawl winding wheel and click system used on the automatic works on this movement.

 

 

 

The train wheels are exposed after removing the train bridge.

 

The movement is now fully stripped down, ready for cleaning and inspection of the parts.Tudor Watch Service

 

The parts after cleaning.

 

During disassembly I noticed the endshakes were unambiguously excessive. Endshake is the amount of vertical play a pivot has in a jewel-hole, it is measured in hundredths of  a milliletre. A small amount is necessary, and this amount will vary with different wheels, pivot sizes, etc…  Too much of it is detrimental to good timekeeping, so the jewels positions are adjusted with a micrometric jewelling tool. Quite a time-consuming exercise, as unusually in this case every single wheel had to be adjusted.

 

A new mainspring is fitted into the barrel.

 

 

There was a little pip caused by wear on the upper balance endstone, it had run dry for too long so it was replaced.

 

 

 

 

Note that the Tudor version of the AS1895 ebauche includes a KIF shock protection system, commonly found on Rolex watches (the standard AS ebauche uses Incabloc).

 

 

 

The train wheels are reassembled now that all the endshakes are correct.

 

The train is now re-assembled, and tested for freedom. All is good.

 

There was a bend in the regulator pin, I am guessing this was a deliberate action to correct dial up/ dial down rate differences in the past. The endshakes as they were before correction would have caused variances in different positions. An example of making a change which is not addressing the root cause of the problem.

 

I reshaped the regulator pin, it is now nice and straight, and parallel to the regulator boot.

 

The automatic works is installed.

 

And I finish with the dial side.

 

Day and date discs back on the movement.

 

At this stage I fit the dial and hands, ready to re-case and carry out final testing.

 

Unfortunately, during testing I notice that the date change is “lazy”, and occasionally does not change properly. There is a quick change mechanism on this movement, so the date change should be quite snappy. This issue can be caused by a number of things such as lack of freedom of the disc, inadequate jumper spring tension and so on. I eventually narrow it down to some burrs on the date disc teeth, which had been caused by wear over the years. The burrs are removed, and thankfully the date change is now working again smoothly all around the calendar.

And finally the service is complete. I would like to conclude by thanking Kevin for allowing me to feature his beautiful watch on the blog.Tudor 7017 Service

 

7 Replies to “Tudor 7017 Automatic Day Date (A Schild 1895) – Service”

  1. Hi there,
    I am working on the same movement at the moment that has the same problem (hands not moving because of a loose canon pinion). I replaced the canon pinion and intermediate wheel with the recommended substitute (Cousins listed AS 1746 parts as substitute for both) but find that the canon pinion is still awfully loose and the hands are still slipping. I tightened the new canon pinion (which I really should not have to do considering it is new) but find that it still does not work properly (the watch is losing about an hour a day). I was hoping you might have some advice because I am not very familiar with these movements. Could it be that the parts numbers I was given are incompatible? Or perhaps I have missed something during the assembly process. Thank you so much in advance.

    1. Hi Stephen
      I had a look at my notes, and I used parts from base caliber AS 1746 as well. The friction was spot on when I fitted the new parts. The only thing I can think of is that the cannon pinion may not be seated properly on the groove, do you feel a nice “positive” stop when you press in the cannon pinion?
      Sorry I cannot be of any more help.
      Best regards
      Olivier

      1. Hi Oliver,

        Thank you for the response! I definitely felt the canon pinion sit into the groove (and heard the sound of it “clicking” into place as well) which is why I am so stumped. I will take it apart again and see if I missed anything. I feel better now knowing that the parts are the proper replacement parts at least. Thank you again for your help!

  2. Hello Olivier !

    Thank ou for this.

    You said: “The part can be tightened, but on this occasion with parts available I opt to replace intermediate wheel and cannon pinion for a durable solution”.

    How one go by tighten that part? Which part? Or parts?

    Thank you very much !

    G

    1. It is the offset cannon pinion that needs tightening (it is mounted with high friction fit on the offset centre wheel arbour).
      Please note if you have never done this it is quite risky as the cannon pinion can get “crushed” in the process, to mitigate this you can fit a smoothing broach through the cannon pinion while tightening it.
      I hope this helps!

      1. Thank you very VERY MUCH Olivier.

        I think that I fixed it ! I installed the hands they were moving again. !

        I have a question but need to send you a picture ?

        I have one little part that I am not sure where it goes.

        Thank you again

        1. Good work! If you drop me an email with the pic I may be able to advise
          All the best

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