holy water in the watch batman (repair for Abdul)

[MikeMcNair 0]

so i get this watch in for service and i swore there was nothing wong with it. its a nice RG Hublot with all sorts of nice TINY little details. i hated these things until i had it on my wrist, and now i love it!!!

 

so i got a watch that was said to be filling with condensation, and when i got it, it looked like this.....

 

 

IMO, perfect, so whats the deal????

 

i wore it to bed one night to see if anything would happen and NOTHING did. BUT, the second night, i awoke to this......

 

(this pic taken at 7 am with a flash to show the moisture, it was sunny in the room)

 

 

YIKES!!!!!!!!

 

so i began inspecting her and cleaning up the mess the water made, and i could still not find a fault in the sealing of this watch!!!

 

i planned on simply taking out all of the seals and replacing them and putting the appropriate lube on them and calling it a day.

 

i then went to clean the caseback, and damnit was i surprised!!! a simple can of compressed air was enough to blow the glass off the caseback, and i knew i found my leak!!!

 

if anyone has this in a Hublot, here is what to do:

 

start by taking off the caseback screws, and removing the caseback... (the next few pix show the water damage to the rotor, as well as the hazing around the mineral glass, AND the weird white shit i found on the rotor, which is actually likely MOLD, YUCK)

 

 

 

 

caseback off look OK, but if you look closely you can actually see wet spots on the case.........

 

 

 

then once the rotor was out it looked like a fucking leopard!!! this was all from water spots.

 

 

 

 

 

then we see the SUPER DRY o-rings on the stem that needed replacement. while i do not feel this was the culprit, i am 100% sure it was a good idea to replace and properly lube them.

 

 

now, when taking a HUBLOT aparrt, you need to unscrw the FRONT AND THE BACK of the cylinders you find on the sides.

 

 

this will allow you to take the caseback backing plate (for lack of better terms) off. whats retarded is that there are 4 bars, and 8 screws! um, why???????

 

anywho, here they are with the watchback-cover....

 

 

so, here is the caseback and the glass in need of repair.......

 

 

 

while there is a small white colored delrin "o-ring-spacer" on this piece of glass i noticed that it sat low no mattter what you do!!!!

 

in short, the caseback itself has a small ledge that the delrin ring sits on, then the glass is pressed into this, and GS-Hypo'd into place. BUT, its not a nice place, and no matter what i came up with (from a dremmel to a hammer) i could not justify potentially killing the caseback.

 

so, i spoke with abdul and he noticed the SAME issue in the FIRST piz i sent him. in fact, if you pae up now, YOU will see it too

 

here is what it looks like WITHOUT the spacer....

 

 

so i got the old crystal glue out, and set her on the vise to ensure she layed as flat as possible...

 

 

these are the size dies you will need if doing this procedure.......

 

 

this was the end result, which is OK at best, but i canot change the caseback, the metal is too this (or i would have dremmel'd it perfect)

 

 

 

i was told not to worry about the movement, but i had to at least clean the water spots off the rotor as that stood out a LOT!!!

 

 

 

i also took it upon myself to clean thiigs up a bit (as you all well know i do)

 

 

 

 

 

once the watch has some time in the sun, she will be ready to go home.

 

here is the final, cemented, ,sealed, and lubed with a new o-ringed caseback.

 

 

thanks for reading!!! this is 2 of 16 posts coming soon

[KeNnY 29]

once again great work Mike !

[Del 4,499]

Another great repair thread Mike! And another great job done!

 

I wish I could do even half of what you can do.

[MikeMcNair 0]

once again great work Mike !

 

thanks Ken, you guys helped me do it by what you have taught me over the last year.

 

now you gotta let me know how to get the bezel screws off an AP, i got the hacks of them off, but the fronts are held in with little weird looking nut/washers. pain in the ass!!!!!!

[KeNnY 29]

once again great work Mike !

 

thanks Ken, you guys helped me do it by what you have taught me over the last year.

 

now you gotta let me know how to get the bezel screws off an AP, i got the hacks of them off, but the fronts are held in with little weird looking nut/washers. pain in the ass!!!!!!

 

I am glad that I contributed to your skills !

 

you mean, there are different looking screws ?

 

I think that on AP you must remove the screws from bottom ?? really don't know mate

[Balad1 0]

Great work and photos Mike.

[MikeMcNair 0]

Great work and photos Mike.

 

 

Thanks Ted!

 

And ken, yeah, top and bottom of the case need a special Allen key, which I have, but then there is a certain locking washer that just spins and holds it together.

 

Considering the customer, it may be gen and need a certain tool. I am honestly not sure, but you will see that repair/pictorial tomorrow night