alligoat

Two basic movements these days, the Swiss ETA, and the asian 21j Miyota copy movement (Chinese). ETA's are generally better quality, can be serviced and repair parts are available. Asian movements are inexpensive, parts are not available and it's cheap to just replace the movements, which cost $15-20 plus shipping here in the US. Like Pug says, show us some movement pics and we can terll you what you have.

If it's one of those Noobmariner type bezels that's tough to get off, you'd be better off gluing the insert in place w/ a little bit of glue. People have had lots of problems trying to remove the Noob bezels. Like Craytonic says, you just need to be careful not to glue the bezel to the watch!

On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the most difficult, let's say it rates a 3-3.5 maybe. It takes the correct tools, a basic level of watchmaking skill and patience. It's been discussed here in the past (search function, hint, hint) and poor mans watch forum has a tutorial on it- www.pmwf.com/. Also, check out Edge's guides around here in the top part of certain sections. It goes along w/ uncasing a movement, etc... And above all, keep reading and searching, you'll find the answers.

I noticed that the rehaut looks pretty good.

I think that would be a fun watch to have for occaisional wear. A couple of weeks ago, I was out on a jobsite and next door was a foreman from Kinder Morgan where they were tapping into a 24" gas line. He had on an all gold Submariner. I should have made a comment about that being an expensive watch to be wearing to work while knocking around out in the field, but I wasn't thinking that fast on my feet that day. Heck, I'd love to know if it was a gen or a rep! Of course, I try to refrain from wearing my gen ss 1680 when I'm getting down and dirty on weekends, etc. I much prefer to be wearing a rep and some of my reps are pretty beat up.

That's interesting how the DJ crystal sits so high on the watch. It's my understanding that the Datejust uses the same 295C sapphire crystal that the sub uses. Guess I'll have to start taking a closer look at the modern DJ's!

Interesting! Maybe this is why my gen 1680 keeps stopping after 5 or 6 days, even though I keep it on a winder when I'm not wearing it. All my other watches including the asians and the v7750's do fine on this quad winder, just the 1680 stops after a few days. I kinda figured it was in the auto winding mechanism and this tells me where to look first. Thanks guys.

I'm not too keen on the DJ either. The crystal is too high for sapphire and a plastic crystal 16013, 16014 late 70's, 80's DJ has holes in the lugs.

If the price is right, go for it. I'm not aware of any glaring faults on that watch. You might try to find a gen to compare it with- check one of the sites that sells gens. The only thing that comes to mind is the printing of the numbers on the bezel. But I'm not a Turn-o-graph expert.

Amen for good watchmakers. I was so happy the day I found my watchmaker. I probably see him once a month and he works on anything (except the chinese movements). A good watchmaker can certainly make this hobby much more enjoyable.

I'm pretty sure that the movement in a 15000 Date is the 3035. That would be round top 3's and open 6's and 9's. A Luenfat datewheel would be correct, if you can get one.

like PP says, first is the gen crown and tube, the rep crown is too BIG. Then it's the gen bezel insert, but this could be tricky. People have been having trouble getting the bezel off without damaging it. So you might be able to remove the movement and dial, pop the crystal out and then remove the insert from the top side w/o removing the bezel ring. Then you'd fit the gen insert in (probably have to do a fair amount of filing to make it fit) and glue it up. Then repress the crystal, and put the movement and dial back in. Oh, while changing the crown and tube, don't forget to trim the insides of the crown guards a little- square them up so to speak. The only other problem is the slim rehaut, but you can't do anything about that. And if you were to only change the crown and tube and trim the cg's, leaving the bezel insert as is, you'd still have a very nice watch for a great price.

The Day-Date looks yucky to me, too much bling but the ref # 118206 is fine and the watch is OK The GMT's are OK, The bezel on the 6200 has been replaced, and I find an $80,000 price tag a bit much The two Sea-Dwellers are probably OK to a point, but you always have to be careful of double reds- it's hard to find them w/ the original dials and the bezel insert sucks and the white SD would be OK if it just came back from the RSC Dallas, but the bracelet is wrong.

Call it the Chinese Conundrum. It's a mystery for us mere mortals here on the wrong side of the world (as well as the Aussies and old world types in Europe), but an interesting development nonetheless. The eta 2836-2 is a relatively old movement- c. 1983-4 with the base 2836 dating to the late 70's. It's hard to believe that ETA would just give up production, allow it's copyrights to lapse, or allow infringement. But we're already seeing asian 2813 type movements on the scene which are copies of the Miyota (Josh calls it a eta copy?), so this latest development doesn't come as a total surprise. Will Swatch Group fight back, or will we see more of these true copy 2836's in the future? Stay tuned!

Happy Birthday RWG. It's been a great year, I've enjoyed it and learned alot. Thanks to Admin, the mods and all the other great folks here. Look forward to more fun here in the future.

Good review, Rob. This could be the answer to our ETA dilemna in the future. BTW, was this the movement that came out of the River sub? Thanks, Mac

Nice job verbal, now you've got a nice Carrera with a Swiss movement- all at a fraction of the price of a gen. I keep hoping we'll see this watch come out in TT in the near future, that's my favorite.

Thanks Ziggy, I just love these posts of yours, they are so informative (and mind boggling for the layman). But I know this takes alot of time for you to do and I appreciate you're spending the time to educate us. A million thanks.

Yep, that's the older Daytona with the Zenith El Primero movement, circa '97-98. I'd figure it will go for between $6500 and 7500. I believe the same watches in all ss go for a little more- go figure.

30.5mm should be right for a CN sub crystal. The rolex 295C won't work (29.5mm).

I looked at the rehaut first, is it a little thin? And I agree w/ the bezel teeth.

Runs and ducks???? Maybe you could explain that to Grandpa, retep!

Yep, a press for closing it back up would be nice.

I can't see any notches on the caseback, so just press the knife in there and gently lift up. Work your way around doing this and the caseback should eventually pop off. I don't know how the they achieve any water resistrance this way, but c'est la vie!

Hey, wait a minute, I resemble that remark! And besides, I kinda like my two frankenjusts. I like to think of them as understated elegance and refinement. LOL.