Well, my 2nd watch cleaning experience was better than the first. I had a 16s 17j elgin with three finger bridge that was not running (ebay). The watch was extremely dirty and gunked up inside. After the cleaning, the movement was spinning freely. However, when the watch was fully assembled, it still did not run. I found that if I put even the slightest pressure on the center wheel, the watch ticked very strongly. On further examination, I found that the barrel cover had popped out causing the mainspring to lose power.

After that I spent hours trying to get the barrel cover to stay on. No matter what I do, it will not cooperate. Are the any tricks or advice that anyone can give me to help with this situation? The cover looks to be flat, but when I pop in one side the other side pops out. Even when I finally get the whole thing in, as soon as I release pressure it pops out again. How can I fix this?

Without a photo, I can't be sure.

Are you aligning the little notches with the tab on the mainspring? Don't forget that USUALLY the smaller notch, on the barrel cover goes over the mainspring tab.

Another possibility is that the mainspring itself is not completely seated in the barrel. You didn't mention if you had removed the mainspring from the barrel or not. When you re-insert the mainspring, the tab has to be located into the little hole and held with a screwdriver BEFORE the spring is released from the winder. Otherwise the tab will surely pop out of the hole when the spring is released.

Might I ask if you are timing your watches after cleaning? Cleaning is an inherently risky proposition. It's easy to break parts and marginal parts will often give-up the ghost during a cleaning.

In my opinion, if these are collectable watches and they are running, cleaning really does not provide any benefit unless you are intent upon timing them and prepared to do a bit of balance tweaking to achieve accurate, positional timing.

If they are "junkers" for practice... great!

Just my 2 cents!

Peter, thanks for trying to help. The watches that I am working on were NOT running. I purchased them very inexpensively on ebay for the learning experience. Of course while learning, I would like to make them work again if I can. I am aware that cleaning is risky, but these watches are for practice. After cleaning, this Elgin 3 finger movement looks almost new, and as I said above, if I put slight pressure on the center wheel, the watch ticks very strongly. If I could solve this barrel cover problem, I would have a working watch. Then I could play with timing. Back to my problem...

Yes, I did take the mainspring out. I re-greased it and used a K&D mainspring winder to rewind and insert the spring into the barrel. I used the procedure that is in the Henry Fried book to do this, and to me, the spring looks like it is seated properly. The mainspring is secure at both the barrel end and at the winding arbor.

The barrel cover has 2 notches, a rectangular shaped one, and a smaller half-circle shaped one. The mainspring has a tab sticking up near where the mainspring attaches to the barrel. I aligned the tab with the rectangular shaped hole in the barrel cover (it fits perfectly in the hole), but I still can't get the barrel cover to stay in.

On looking at this further, I can see that there are staking marks on the inside of the barrel cover, near the outer edge. Could this mean that the previous repair person was having the same problem and used a flat-blade-screwdriver type of stake in an attempt to "stretch" the cover so that it would fit more tightly? (I will try to post a picture later on today).

What is the normal procedure for re-inserting the cover?

Tony,

The small half-circle shaped notch should be the one that the t-ended mainspring pin fits into. The rectangular notch is one that is often used to pry up the cover with.

Since you are seeing punch marks on the underside of the barrel, it is quite possible that this has been a problem before. On many of these barrels, a partial SN was punched into the barel and also scribed on the barrel cap. You could check to see if they are a matched pair.

To reassemble barrels, I install the lubricated mainspring in the barrel with a winder, install the mainspring arbor (make sure it is in correctly), I then line up the barrel cover so that the t-end pin is positioned in the proper hole on the cover. With a piece of watch paper, hold the barrel and cover together, and snap it shut with finger pressure. You will hear a noticable "snap"

If it isn't working, check the following.

Does the arbor have proper end and side shake in the barrel without the mainspring installed? If No, then adjust for proper clearance.

Can you snap on the cover without the arbor in the barrel? If No, then you either have a barrel or cover out of round.

Can you snap shut the barrel with the mainspring installed, but without the arbor? If No, the mainspring might be the wrong one, or the T-end of the mainspring might need some filing to make it fit more properly.

Those are some things you can try to narrow down the culprit.

Common problem. Try all the things that Mike Miller mentions above. Sometimes you have to regroove the the inner ring of the barrel because it's not sharp enough to hold the cover on. Easiest to do that on a lathe though you might be able to do it by hand. You might also try a barrel closer that makes the diameter of the barrel slightly smaller. You can also try punching out the barrel cover edge to make it larger. It's all a bunch of hack work but the barrel and cover are made of brass and wears over time. Easiest thing to do is just get a new barrel and/or cover.

Frank "407" Kusumoto

I'd agree with everything Mike said except I'd have to see the barrel before I'd be so sure which notch is for the mainspring. Usually, it's the smaller of the two.

Also, when you took the mainspring cover off, the first time, did you pry it off? I try not to do that. Instead, I wack the other side, lightly with a WOOD hammer (small). I wonder if you can do some damage with prying.

BTW, I began buying on Ebay for exactly the same reason as you.... to get questionable watches that I could learn to repair.

Nobody will doubt that Ebay is the mother-lode of messed-up watches!

Here is a picture of the barrel with mainspring installed....

Here is a picture of the inside of the barrel cover. Note the staking marks along the outer edge. I did not make any of the marks that you see. They all came free with the watch.

I tried one of the suggestions: I took the mainspring and winding arbor out of the barrel and tried to pop the cover in. Even with nothing in the barrel the cover does the exact same thing! I did not have any trouble with the cover on the previous watch that I worked on, it just popped right in using finger pressure.

It looks to me like someone tried to enlarge the cover with the staking tool.I would see if i could get a replacement barrel and cover.I don,t think there much fix to the barrel and cover.
Just my opinion.
Also i would have put a new mainspring in.Since you had it all apart anyways.Those 3 finger Elgins are nice watches.

Tony,

I need to modify my former advise. This Elgin has a DB and H Maispring end. So you were correct that the rectangular part of the barrel cap is where the tine of the mainspring fits.

As to the cover... It definately looks like the cover was repunched to try and make it fit the barrel. Since the cover won't snap into place without anything else in the barrel, it's a sure bet that the fit of the cover is shot. As Frank stated, there are ways of trying to correct this, but they are all tricky. You could give them a try, since you don't have anything to loose at this point. But it sounds like a barrel and cover replacement is in order.

Thanks a lot for the responses! Once again, I have learned something by reading and following the advice given in this thread.

I have played with the cover enough to agree that I should get a replacement barrel and cover. Perhaps while I am waiting for the replacement to arrive I will continue to try some of the other suggestions (just for the experience).

Kevin, I agree that I should put a new mainspring in. In fact, I had already ordered one from Tom at dashto, but after cleaning and lubrication the watch looked so good that I just "had to" try it. That is why I (temporarily) re-installed the old mainspring.