SSTEEL

Another update for you all, and some more eye candy, yes I said I wasn't going to complete the transplant fully until August, but I just couldn't help myself, and had to finish the job Fitted the gen dial to the Calibre 16.. Photo of one of the dial feet anchors.. Rep movement holder fitted, it was tight, but fitting over the crown and pushers side first made the job much easier. Just a note, the movement in this model is held down with three screws, and plates, the tiny plates have an angle on the end that goes into the groove on the inner case, you need to make sure this angled part is facing upwards, facing you with the watch dial facing down. If you fit these the wrong way round, the movement will move. See photo below of one of said clips.. Then it was time to fit the hands, and I thought I would tackle the hardest ones first, the sub-dial tiny hands.. Fitting of the sub-dial hands was tedious, but patience is paramount here, just take your time, use your loupe, and easy does it. Refitting the hour, minutes, and chronograph hands was easier, but at first I hadn't pushed the hour hand down enough, and when testing the hands to see if they rubbed, rub they did, so off they came, and refitted correctly, checking clearance this time round with my loupe. Then back into the case.. Admiring my work, I realise in my excitement, I forgot to use the blower, and then I spotted this next to the C of Carrera, ARRRRRRRGGGGG So, whipped the back off again, removed movement, then gave everything a good blow, and rodico treatment to make sure. Now, before fitting the hands earlier, I set to what I thought was midnight. How I came to this conclusion was with the crown in the right position, I turned anticlockwise until the day changed, then I turned clockwise so the date changed, then to double make sure, I then pulled the crown to the time set position, and continued to turn the crown clockwise until the day, and date changed. When they changed I assumed it was midnight. You know what they say about assumption, well, yes, it fcuked up lol, once I fit everything, and checking the day/date flip over, I got to midnight, and it didn't change. I continues to turn the crown, and the day, and date finally switched to the next day'date at 3AM DOH! I will correct this next time I remove the movement when I do the water resistance test. As of right now, everything is pretty much done, just need to trim the stem as its a few mm long, and also fit the gen bracelet resize, and enjoy my franken Carrera. If you have been following, and actually reading as well as enjoying the eye candy, then well done, congrats, and thanks for following my progress on this project. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask away! Cheers Micky

Someone asked over on RWI if my red tipped Gen hands were shorter that the reps, so I took the photo below. My gen sub-dial hands are very slightly bigger/longer. (The red tipped ones, the seconds hand, non-red tipped is shorter than these, as per gen, and rep) Rep fitted, gen in tweezer. Just after I took this photo for you the hand went flying from the tweezers, but luckily I found it not too far away on my work bench

Curiosity got the better of me, I wanted to check if the Calibre 16 gen movement would fit the rep 7750 movement holder, and it looks very very tight, and unsure if it will actually fit at all, I didn't want to push too hard in fitting it just yet, as I will need to get to the dial feet holders on the sides of the movement. Once dial is fitted, I will try again.

Had a bit of spare time today, so started on the Carrera frankening work, but today I only wanted to remove movement to inspect the pushers construction to see if they were gen like, but sadly they are not, so I will not be able to use my gen pushers in this project, but no problem. I will buy a cheap quartz model to experiment on further with the pushers, so alls not lost yet. Onto the photos.. Movement complete with dial, and movement holder. Photos for reference in case I need to refit the movement holder to the same position on the gen Calibre 16 movement. Photos of fitted rep pushers, notice the lack of small flat screwdriver slot.. Gen pusher, showing the screw end.. Another, better (I hope) photo of the rep internal end with no screw slot.. The rep pushers are held in place with what looks like tiny cir-clips, and on closer inspection, they do have rubber o-rings for water resistance, which is a bonus. I have decided at this point that I will only complete this project once I have received my water resistance tester, and hand press, so I apologise to those who have been following this project, and looking forward to the finished project, but alas it won't be completed now until August time due to family vacation, and parts/tools arriving. Photos below after movement holder ring removed from the movement. The holder is machined to exact tolerances to simply push fit onto the movement, and it was not screwed in place as I first thought. Lets hope I don't need to rework this holder for the Calibre 16. We shall see. Rep movement holder.. And to close, a photo of where the rep movement will reside until I get that cheap quartz Carrera to play with There is a case back gasket, and crown inner gasket I discovered, the latter seals on the non-screw-down tube, so whilst not a tight water resistance seal, it is sealed nevertheless. As mentioned above, I will be carrying out a water resistance test when I get my tool, and obviously post results in this thread. Thanks for following

Welcome back indeed, I am an oldie too, returning after several years away. You will notice that our reps have come a long way since the old days, however, the Daytona with sec@6 still is not perfected yet lol

Looking forward to seeing what you may find there my friend

There is a guy over on TRF who can custom make you a display back for your Rolex.

Myself, personally, having owned several gens in my past, but with things such as life, I had to let them go, and now, not being the high flier I once was, I cannot afford several gens, so I got into the rep game. It was several years ago I first started, then life got in the way again with work, and long story short, now semi-retired, left UK and now living in Finland, I have more time on my hands, and getting back into my pastime and loving it. I have the support of my wife too, which is a bonus. Regarding frankening, I am in the process of frankening a 7750 Tag Carrera Day Date with gen parts. All these parts cost over €1000, and the genuine watch only retails new for just under €5k, so you may have the question why? Well, its part of the fun/thrill of this hobby, I'm a tinkerer, love watches, and love fixing things like misaligned indices and whatnot. Anyhow, I'm rambling on, I'll get me coat lol

Its all down to personal preference I guess.

Aha, thanks for explaining mate, still learning here.

Oh right, my bad then, I thought the Cannon Pinion #4 on the TC for example was more gen like, which TC's photo comparison shows. This is why I referred to the cannon pinion to the OP as he's referring to the second hand top which connects to the second wheel gear, no?

There is another thread discussing this cap over the pinion, its on newer models released this year at Basel iirc. You are referring to the Cannon Pinion.

Cool. I am a member there too, but RWG is my home.

Great work mate, coming along nicely

Your first post in a year! Get yourself over to the intro area, long overdue mate

Glad you got it sorted

10 minute job for a good watch smith.

Thanks again for clearing that up mate. I have been practising on an old 21j for the last few days, and getting the hang of it, but with over €1000 in gen parts for my franken Carrera, I will await delivery of my hand press before carrying on with the work on it.

There are several guides on how to tackle the repair yourself, search, keyless+tutorial

Oh dear. Where are you located? Knowing this, we can suggest local repairs/modders for you.

Thanks for that, i have one of those single hands pressers on the way, but was wondering how exactly they work. Do you attach the hand into the nylon part of the press first, and then lower the press down, and gently press onto the pinion? If so, I'm guessing the different tips for different hand holes? The above is what is puzzling me at the moment, and was even considering using my manual hands press stick with a tiny amount of Rodico on it, but would prefer to wait until my hands press arrives before finishing my franken Carrera, which has 3 small sub dial hands.

What did you use to release the stem? If you push past the flat screwdriver protection recess, then keyless works could be messed up.

Good to hear. You will need either the gasket to go with it, or use UV glue, along with a UV light to harden/set, oh and you will need a crystal press with the correct size dies too.

The new 45mm does indeed lose the LM engraving, and its only the Ti 45mm that still has it as per gen. Sounds to me that the email reply you got was not from Andrew himself, but a helper.

Your welcome mate. Good luck, hopefully your TD will send out a replacement crystal to you.