freddy333

Like they say, timing is everything. I rarely venture into this forum (I come to RWG for watches), but I had some free time & found Chicken Manny's post. While I have no personal experience with the current crop of Jaguar cars, I was trained (35 years ago) to fix them & I spent several years after that restoring them (mostly E-types). I still have a couple of friends who specialize in modern Jaguar repairs & while they are some of the most beautiful & comfortable cars on the road, my impression is that they remain at or near the bottom of the reliability list. For a 2nd car that you just want to be seen around town in, I would say, unequivocally, go for it. But if this is your daily beater, I would think twice & consider something else (Lexus comes to mind).

Spent the late afternoon car shopping with this (hidden below my cuff)

Yes, it looks like your dial's date window was cut to fit an ETA, which would account for the date being off-center. A dial made to fit a Rolex 1570 should fix the problem. To post a larger image (I would go no larger than 1024x768), click the 'Insert Image' icon in the RWG editor & copy the link from your imageshack page into it. Do not use the 'Insert Link' icon (that is for posting URLs). This is what it should look like

The day before

Either you have an aftermarket date disc &/or the date window in your dial was cut off-center. If your date disc is gen, I would point the finger at the dial, which, if MBW, was made to fit an ETA date (which resides about 1mm west of where Rolex places it). Gens or gen movements with dials made to fit gen movements should be close to dead center on all dates

Without seeing good, clear macro pics of the entire watch, I can only recommend that you remove the caseback to be sure that it at least contains a gen Rolex 3135 movement. If you are unfamiliar with what they look like, check google.

Outstanding. The only question I have is how well the transparent overlay will handle temperature extremes over time?

I use a staking set bit, but anything with a similar shape that fits around the pinion's shaft will do Press fairly hard until you hear the pinion bottom onto the plate. It is impossible to explain how hard is too hard, but somewhere between not hard enough & just right the pinion will slide down the arbor & lock into place. Be careful to have the teeth on the adjacent wheel lined up with the cannon pinion's teeth as you press it down or you may damage them.

I have not seen brass-plated parts for many years (except on very low end rep parts). What type of watch do you have with brass-plated hands? And I would agree with Avitt's recommendation of a Cape Cod cloth. I have also used semichrome polish with good results, but it will definitely change the color of lume (I usually relume any hands that need refinishing anyway).

Ending the work week wearing my beater (right) today

I cannot imagine how you could have bent the bezel (or do you mean the insert) while removing it, but you can try setting it upside-down on a table & then lifting whichever area is bent with the same knife that bent it originally. Failing that, I think you are going to have to contact the seller to see about getting a replacement. You might also be able to buy an aftermarket bezel on ebay (I do not know who sells them, but I have seen them for sale there over the years).

Thanks, but that was not the shot I had planned. It was supposed to be a pic of me wearing the sunglasses with Newman's image reflecting, fully, in both lenses, so it looked like I was standing there next to his Z with my 6239-strapped arm also reflected in 1 of the lenses. Unfortunately, I ran out of hands (2 is never enough) & I could not figure out how to get everything in the shot without the reflections (& camera) blocking everything. Then, the plan was to strip out the color, half-tone the result & crop the pic into a newspaper article from the 70s so it looked period correct. 1 of those cute ideas that, in theory, seemed doable, but, in practice, did not work out quite as planned. Off to the feed trough.

I was a Jaguar apprentice when the last of the V12 Es left the assembly line. Unfortunately, I could not afford 1 then (even though I was able to get a discount through Jaguar Cars) &, as you mentioned, they proved to be alot of trouble later on (hard to produce a quality car when, between the strikes & tea breaks, the assembly line is constantly being stopped up to a dozen times/day). I have owned 2 E-types (sadly, both sold years ago), but both were inline 6s. Beautiful Beemer, Euno.

If the dial is MBW, I would assume the movement & datewheel are also MBW. Most MBW dates are pretty well centered, at least when new. However, they rely on datewheel overlays (thin metal plates containing the Rolex-style fonts which are glued on top of the original ETA datewheel) & these tend to shift &/or come loose over time. So your overlay may have simply shifted off-center. The only way to tell for sure is to remove the movement, remove the dial & hands & check the datewheel &/or reglue the overlay in the correct position. Then reassemble.

I assume by 'Day-Date', you mean the Rolex Daydate? Search the Collectors' offerings to see if any of them have what you are looking for. I believe that Josh (Perfect Clones) & Andrew (Trusty) still make some Rolex reps to order, so you might email 1 of them & inquire if you do not see what you want.

Off to dinner Thursday eve with 1 of Newman's own

Is your date disc gen? Varying date locations sounds like 1 of Mr. Slimeball's 'You Will Not Be Able To Tell The Difference From The Original' discs. These contain any of the following - incorrect font, incorrect placement of said font on disc or incorrectly shaped teeth of disc (which causes the disc to stop in between some dates). If you can see the edge of the disc, your dial window may be cut incorrectly in the dial.

Very nice watch, but it does have a few notable errors (wrong date font, etched (instead of engraved) markings, index marker at 12, mediocre fit & finish, etc) that most modern reps have.

They look good, but a bit overpriced. The last set I bought on ebay (they also came from Germany) cost almost half what he is selling his for.

I used to restore those. The early 60s versions were especially nice cars. We also did Triumphs & a couple of Lotuses This was my daily franken beater back then, which is now old enough to qualify as vintage itself Great catch, JoJo. Not only a beautiful watch, but in truly excellent condition & on a 9315. Did you get any of the watch's history from the previous owner?

My usual beater (left) today (Thursday)

Beautiful motor, Euno. How about the container?

Mr. Slimeball has aftermarket discs available, which might fit until you find a proper part.

Unless someone has an extra lying around, ebay is your best bet. They come up fairly frequently, both gen & aftermarket.

It seems to me that you could probably construct a pretty accurate rep by combining the best of the 2 best versions. Of course, that would double the purchase price, but, as they say, the 1st 90% towards perfection always costs you alot less than the last 10%.