jmb

Andy, are the hands a direct swap between the a21j and the 8215?

I have been trying to install a DG4813 for about a month and finally have given up on finding the correct 4813. The swap needs a "high cannon pinion" version of the movement which, according to ofrei, apparently no longer exists. ajoesmith says he has no more of the correct movement and his supply has "dried up" so I guess we're all screwed as far as a cheap high-beat alternative is concerned. My noob ran for about 2 days before having problems (stopping randomly) and I've resigned myself to putting in a 2813 as even that is an "upgrade" from the noob movement. Good luck and if you find a source for the "high pinion" 4813 let me know! Best regards, Justin B.

I doubt that it will do much other than soak the parts, but at that price you ain't got much to loose! The part that seems strange is it needing suction cup feet so it won't "slip". Ultrasonic cleaners vibrate at a, well, ultrasonic rate. I know mine emits a sort of high pitched squealing sound and produces absolutely no vibrations. I have a heavy-duty Harbor Freight unit that heats the solution and is all stainless steel. Seems I remember it being about $130 or so. Never tried it on a watch but it did a good job on a couple of motorcycle carburettors!

I received a reply from AJS that he does not have any more movements and no longer has a source for them. It appears that an inexpensive high-beat upgrade for the a21j may not exist anymore.

OK, I'll try the PM route. Hey, Trailboss, the 2813 I got from ofrei looks to have a "protruding" seconds pinion but is DOA - will only run right-side up!. Hopefully they will agree to replace it and I'll at least be back in the game...

After searching on a couple of forums I was left with the impression that he didn't have any more. I guess the SS Submariner is getting closer to a reality...

OK, y'all, I need some help. I need to replace the el-crappo movement in my Noobmariner with something that will run longer that 3-4 hours without thumping it. I figured this would also be a good time for a high-beat upgrade and decided on the 4813 which I promptly ordered from Cousins. No good, short hand stack and not enough pinion sticking up above the dial to stick the hour hand to. Use thin dial spacer and datewheel overlay rubs so that's no good either. I order another from ofrei and wind up with exactly the same thing. I give up and order a 2813 (I really want to wear the watch) get everything put together up to the seconds hand and there wasn't enough pinion sticking up for the hand's tube to get a grip on!!!!! Does anybody know a reliable source for the correct 4813 with the longer pinions? I'm gonna go broke trying to find a good movement at this rate. I suppose I could admit defeat and just tell people it's a rare special order "SS" (sans seconds) model...

I was referring mainly to getting a Daytona rep with 7750 which I understand are till bad news even with the latest "upgrades" to the movement mods.

I decided I needed a chrono, and since it looks like the A7750 Daytona movements are probably forevermore bug ridden I ordered one with a quarts movement from idolreplicas.com (watcheden's sister site) and it just arrived. I decided on a Tag as I was advised there are actual gens with quarts movements and I didn't want one that would just scream FAKE! I've been told this particular model came/comes in a quartz version but I don't think anybody I have daily contact with will ever know the difference, or care, if that's not the case! This example is supposed to be built using the same casework as the 7750 version and all I can say is it weighs a ton! Well, not really, but at 169 gm it's the heaviest watch in my meager collection. The fit and finish appear nice and it's only apparent flaw being the "split second" (not sure the correct term but it's the 6:00 subdial) hand is applied a couple of seconds off when zeroed in stopwatch mode and the chrono seconds hand "ticks" don't land on their marks when running downhill. Since the hand lines up with it's marks on the uphill journey I attribute the flaw to some sort of gear backlash. All-in-all it feels like a quality well built piece and for only a little over $100 shipped it didn't break the bank. My only gripe is that I really don't like the styling/general design of the Tag bands - I'm more partial to the "Rolex style" bands. Here are a couple of pics of the un-cleaned watch as received:

Maybe buy a cheap ultrasonic cleaner to toss the band into and then clean case,etc., as described in earlier responses. I do that a couple times per year on any (rep or non rep cheapie) watch I wear daily as working in a machine shop causes all sort of grunge to get into every nook and cranny of the band.

Sometimes group buys can be a pain but they are usually worth it. I run a motorcycle related forum and have ran several over the past couple of years with good results. I suppose the make-or-break of such a deal would be price and minimum quantity. If, say, price was a buck or two ea and minimum order was 100 pieces I wouldn't have a problem buying 50 or so - that's about the cost of a couple cheap sacrificial subs with shipping. Again, depending on price, I would put them up in lots of 10 to make things a bit easier on the send-out... Keeping track and shipping onesies and twosies would be a real PITA! :-p

Demsey, yes, By-Tor has a very diplomatic style of calling a turd a turd ;-) I think I've determined that the simplest thing to do would be to turn it back into a sub since that appears what the majority of it's constituent parts heredity is. And, if I do dump 2x my purchase price into it I'll still be under a C-note! Plus, if I totally hose it up maybe the plain back will fit my cheapo Daytona that has the gawd-awful engraved back with the incorrect spelling on it!! I would try to mill it off but it's so thin I'm afraid there wouldn't be any metal left once I finished... :-p

You're probably right. It would be nice if some dealer could do up a group purchase for a couple hundred, say, noobmariner (or comparable quality) dials and a bunch of us could split it. Surely these dials couldn't contribute more than a buck or so to the production cost of a rep. The watches are dirt cheap but the shipping is murder. I would order multiples but afraid customs might decide I'd crossed a line of some sorts.

I hadn't thought about keeping the "24 hour" hand on a sub dial but it sounds kinda cool! Are there any good sources for inexpensive dials or do I need to start whining to a dealer and maybe they'll find me one just to get rid of me? ROTFLMAO I have e-mailed some for other parts and received replies that they couldn't get parts. I could have sworn I saw several obviously aftermarket/fake Rolex "red Sub" dials on flea-bay yesterday for $50 and today they are all gone...

That was my thinking when I ordered these things, if I messed one up I wouldn't loose any sleep over it. TeeJay, check out my companion post about the GMT II, apparently it is totally wrong as a GMT and I'm thinking it's probably just a Sub with different bezel and dial. I'm thinking of turning that one into a Sub of some kind. From the critiques I've had of it it sounds like that would be easier than trying to turn it into a convincing GMT...

Other than the CGs and date wheel this on doesn't look too bad to me especially for about $25! Who/where is the best place to get date wheel overlays from or do people make their own with photoshop?

Toad, I learned a few new words yesterday when I realized the date wheel on the 4813 movement I'm putting into my noobmariner didn't line up! I found your repost of the ajoesmith article on changing datewheels and am trying to work up the courage. It's gotta be done... Ryan, I'm not really sure, just stuff to make it more "believable", I suppose.

Thanks for the comments. I realized a lot of things were "not right" but this is meant as a "learning tool" to mess with so I don't ruin anything important. I can have fun messing with date wheels and thinning CGs, etc., and generally learning about how these things work...

Thanks for the description of "how it should work"! Alas, this is but a cheap rep and it doesn't seem to work that way but instead the GMT hand follows the hour hand in a 24 hour mode... The things that seem a bit irritating to me are: 1. The date font looks "weak" and is not perfectly centered in the window. 2. Crown shape. 3. CGs seem a bit "overfed". I've done some searching and it seems that GOOD pis of this gen model are few and far between...

As mentioned in a previous post I also ordered a cheapie GMT Master II to hack around on as well. This is the first GMT I've bought and I have no idea as to how "close" it looks to the "ideal" GMT Master. I did notice that the hologram sticker has the same number on it as the Sub and neither have any rehaut engraving. The same observations apply to this as the Sub, even the etched crown at 6:00. I really don't know that much about GMT watches but it looked cool and was cheap. I still haven't been able to figure out how to set the "gmt hand" but I'll put some more thought into it later. It appears to be geared to the regular hour hand so I guess I need to continue "passing go" untill both hands point where I want them to...

For some reason my "edit" button went "AWOL" so I couldn't change the image links so I blew away the huge ones and uploaded these:

I decided to break all of the rules and order a cheapo sub from an unrecognized source to play with. I will be going "under the knife" to get my knee fixed in about a week so I figured I better stock up on projects so I wouldn't go stir-crazy while healing up. I ordered a Sub, GMT Master II, and a Daytona w/faux chrono. On the Daytona I plan on locking the sweep second hand and 9:00 and 3:00 subdial hands in their "reset" position so it will look a bit more believable. For the price I paid I really wasn't expecting much, had prepared myself for receiving a couple of boxes full of absolute junk, and wasn't expecting them to run more than a few minutes without requiring a good "rap". So far I'm pleasantly surprised! My untrained eye can spot a couple of things that need addressing but all-in-all they are very serviceable watches that I won't loose any sleep over if one of them gets crunched at work. Here are some preliminary shots of the Sub (I'll resize and repost pix later): I was quite surprised to find a "crown etching" on the crystal and a fairly generous pearl and one of the wholesalers threw in a freebie Montblanc pen to boot! While I am convalescing I'll probably practice re-shaping the crown guards a bit as they look a bit "overfed".

I'm having a very hard time finding anything more than minor variations in the CG shape in this noob compared to pics I've harvested for several gens. Maybe somebody could take the last pic from bottom and point out what needs to be changed. I overlayed this pic on that of a gen (in photoshop)and couldn't see enough difference to mess with - or maybe my eyes are just shot...

That's interesting, do you think I got this through the "luck of the draw" or maybe the factory decided the "old" one was better? So far, after Tri-Flowing the rotor bearing and manually winding the crap out of it, it hasn't quit running in almost 24 hours so I may have dodged the bullet. I will, however, probably put in the DG4813 movement I ordered just to get the smoother sweep... I also ordered a watchmaterial pearl and insert as the current pearl looks pretty crappy even to a total noob like me!

alligoat, I had the band off today to oil the rotor bearing and the S/N between the lugs on mine is F520117...