Is the 5517 Submariner rep water resistant?

[predfan2001]

I'd say not, well not without replacing the crown and tube with gen items. As you know I'm from Tennessee so in my "redneck" way of watchmaking, I assemble my case before the movement goes in and submerge the case in water over night to check water resistance. If they leak, they fail. Granted if they don't leak, that doesn't make them totally waterproof, but washing dishes or a shower is usually as wet as my watches get anyway.

After 2 5517 rep cases I have tested, I can see that I don't trust the tube to crown seal. Both of mine leaked when tested. The tube to case seal is ok because I seal the tube in installation after I modify the crown guards. I think that if they had a gen tube and crown it would probably be ok, but I haven't invested in the tools to do the install yet.

I've found checking water resistance very interesting. None of my crystals have leaked (I use GS hypo adhesive on plexi crystals and lube all rubber seals). Actually the 5517 tubes are the only leaks I have ran into. When compairing to other reps the tube looks much shorter which makes me wonder if the seals are actually contacting as they should for a good seal?

Food for thought.

Redneck watertest. This vintage case passed the test:

5517 results (this is the "pointy cg" case I'm using for my Tudor Hydro project) see the water under the tube. This was only after about 30 seconds under water:

Edited November 24, 2007 by predfan2001

[freddy333]

I have found that some rep crowns come into contact with the case before they screw all the way down onto the tube. This, of course, allows moisture & dust to enter the case. And if you do not specifically check for this, it is hard to tell just by looking at the watch. After discovering this on the 2nd rep I tested, I started installing tubes a bit further out from the case than you would normally see on a new watch (but I have alot of pictures of vintage gens from TZ & Antiquorum that appear this way)