Rolex 4130 teardown and service

[Logixa]

Here are some pictures of a teardown and full service of the noob daytona 4130 movement that I did. Pictures are in reverse chrono order.

Quitte a nice movement!

Some findings:
- kif shock spring is a pain in the ass to work with.
- gear teeths are not great and can cause an irregular chrono ticking in combination with the clutch module
- kif end stones are thicker than novodiacs
- placing the chrono hand back is a pain in the ass to get it right on the mark exact.
- in my opinion a better made movement than the shitty sh3135

Lots of credit to misiekped and red1 these guys were very helpful when I needed it! Thank you fellas!

Pictures

 

[dmnk]

Very interesting post and pictures, thank you for that!
How long does it take to service the movement and what's your opinion about servicing as soon as you get it? Currently waiting for mine and I am gathering as much information as I can.

 

[Logixa]

It's a lot of work for this movement. The kif springs and end stone oiling costs considerably more time than other movements. This was my first time servicing this movement but I guess that 4 to 6 hours would be an average time, of course assuming nothing breaks or anything.

​​​​​I highly advice on servicing it soon as the low amount of oil, wrong places, etc cause the movement to not work optimally. Especially the chrono parts are dry as hell on some parts.

This was somebody else's watch. I've also got a daytona recently and have spend a lot of bucks buying gen gears for the train and chrono.
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[thinker1]

Amazing work bro ... having recently done it, I didn’t even dare open kif for cleaning and oiling. Lining chrono hand perfectly isn’t too much of a trouble. Again great stuff!!

 

[dmnk]

Thanks for the answer. I will probably order a CF bezel and the ARF bracelet and let some service it.

 

[KJ2020]

Great work bro. I saw this before and meant to comment but I must have gotten sidetracked. I had subscribed to it for reference. Thanks for posting!

 

[TJ88]

Nice job, the trickiest part is putting the chronos in the right position, rest is easy.

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[Logixa]

Thanks fellas! Was quitte surprised to see notification for this topic after such a long time

I've done a couple more of these movements and have fallen in love with them. It's such a amazingly smart designed movement by Rolex. See it like this, the valjoux and all Patek/ap/etc movements and designed and build by master watchmakers. Rolex movements, especially this one, are designed and build by German engineers everything is so damn over-engineered that it's just mind wobbling.

In my personal opinion, the best movement in the world is the Daytona 4130. Nothing can beat it.

 

[dogwood]

Just wanted to say thanks for this post / thread. Extremely useful. I have a 4130 incoming (just ordered a 116500 from my TD's old stock), and was very curious about the movement. As an engineer, the first thing I'm going to do is take it all apart to look at the quality and assembly. These pics are a hugely valuable resource.

 

[Samgobigs]

Thanks for this post and your impression. May I ask if you have serviced a genuine 4130 before and if so what differences did you noticed when compared to a replica 4130?

Seeing your post makes me want to wait until a new factory gets the 4130 movement. Hopefully that won’t be too long.


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[Logixa]

The biggest visual difference between the rep and Gen is the finishing on the Gen. Gen has angled sides on almost all parts and gives it a high quality look.