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New Josh Explorer 1655 Gen Mods - Simple Man's Review


JohnCocktosten

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First, please note that I am in no way affiliated with Josh, perfect clones or any other person or entity that might deal these watches. This was just informative and a bit of fun.

I was interested by another post on the board from Josh stating his case was truly made with a gen as reference and supposedly 1:1. I had a Tropic 116 crystal and a gen crown and tube and decided to see if I could mod without a bunch of compromises/sanding/general breaking stuff I usually do/etc.

Crystal:

The gen Tropic 116 seated down on the ring very snugly, but I didn't have to force it or ever fear I would crack the crystal or damage it. Crystal press put it right on without any issues.

The bezel slid on and with a bit of pressure from a press, it slid over the crystal and seated really firmly and is tight as can be and won't budge.

Crown and Tube

Popped the old crap tube out of the case with a bit of force on the broach and then replaced with a new gen 24-602-0 some Loctite with relative ease. I didn't even mangle up the threads of the tap as I have done 10 times before. The 24-600-0 crown of course seated nicely against the case.

Josh's folded bracelet that comes OOTB with the watch is a pretty nice bracelet. Doesn't accept gen bars, so I have may have to attempt to drill when I drill out the lugs.

May be a dupe post of someone else's work, but thought someone might find of interest.

Really poor pics of the result (I need to align the cyclops and bezel a bit better, but you get the point). Note that I beat up the case and bezel prior.

DSCN0359.jpg

DSCN0358.jpg

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flyingwedge, this is really interesting,

A noob question about the tube replacement : do you use a gen/aftermarket crown also ? or the rep crown fits on the gen tube ?

I had a NOS gen 24-602 tube and 24-600 crown I cracked from packaging before installing (which I had a bit of trouble finding for reasonable money at the time). I'm not sure about gen crowns fitting on the old crappy tube (or vice versa) or how they are received by other aftermarket tubes.

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Cool, looks like you're on your way!

Too bad you have to drill the lugs and the bracelet ends- I was hoping the rep makers were getting that one down like on the PT1665 and the new 1680 subs.

look forward to seeing more.

Yes, I'm not the most handy with power tools. I may have to outsource the drilling of the lugs. :rolleyes: I'll post some more when I find a decent dial and get the 2836 ready to roll. Have some gen omega flightmaster hands and a stick second hand I've found that I'm going to play with.

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flyingwedge - thanks....is it possible to show a pic of the second hand when you have the time?

thanks in advance

Flex

That link I posted before has a pic of it unmodified. I trimmed a bit off of the short side to get it to be uniform in width (as close as I could do) along the whole length of the hand. That's how I've seen the stick hand 1655's appear. May not be 100% correct.

I found a Mark II'ish dial and I'll have everything done in the next couple of weeks. I'll post pics then.

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I'm not sure I understand your question.

the second hand is carried on the fourth wheel pinion. the tube on second hand that slips over the pinion is double in length of a regular movement ie a 1530 vs a 1565gmt. i just wonder if the ofrei part would work. if it did i would like to do that mod too

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