I have a 17j 3 finger bridge Elgin that is stopping when I pick it up. It runs fine when laid on its face and I can see the balance turn. I have taken the movement apart and cleaned and oiled it. I have looked at the gears and the balance, and the jewels and cant see a problem. I just cant see anything wrong. Would anyone have a suggestion on where to focus looking?

Sounds like maybe a cracked or broken jewel in the balance cock.

Cecil has given you one possibility. To narrow down your problem, I would let down the mainspring and take out the balance assembly with the balance cock. (When you cleaned the watch, did you take the jewels apart on the balance cock and plate and clean them?) Take the pallet bridge and pallet out. Put the balance assembly back in the watch without the pallet in. With a twist of the wrist the balance should oscillate rapidly and do so freely in all positions. It should oscillate for a minimum of a minute on hairspring coil/recoil alone. When the balance comes to a stop it should do so very smoothly without stopping suddenly. Picking the watch up should show very free balance motion. I suspect your watch will fail this test. Take the balance wheel off the balance cock and look carefully at the balance staff pivots to see if they are straight and have a nice shine to them. If you haven't done so already, take the jewels apart, closely examine them and make sure they show no damage. By this time my guess is you will have found either a bent balance staff pivot, a scored pivot, or a jewel problem. If not, you can make sure the hole jewels are at least workable by laying the hole jewel over its respective balance staff pivot. The pivot should project thru the hole jewel. Upon reassembly, check endshake and sideshake.

There could other things that cause this, but this should narrow things down some.

Good Luck

Thank you both. I will be looking at that area. I did take the jewels out and clean them. But I am a real novice on troubleshooting and being able to spot problems. This will help by narrowing the focus of what could be wrong. It will be a fun learning experience.

Just to clarify why I suggest checking the hole jewels on the pivots. Over the life of the watch it is entirely possible that someone replaced a jewel with one of an incorrect size. Or replaced a staff with one of a different size. Typically balance staffs that carry the same part number can have pivot sizes that are different. I can't tell you how many times I have found mismatched staff pivots and hole jewels.

I took everything apart again and couldnt see anything, but it didnt spin quite freely with the fork out. I had a parts movement with a bad fork and main gear. So I swapped out the jewels on the balance cock and its running like a champ.
Thank you for pointing me at the problem. I cant see anything wrong with the jewel, perhaps someone did put the wrong one in at some point.

Good job Cecil & Roger & Jim....another job well done and another one saved....

Regards,

Jerry