tribefan 6,768 Posted January 3, 2021 Months ago I had dreams of rebuilding some 6497's that I bought in a parts drawer clearance. One of the three was flat out dead and was full of rust, but was a complete movement. I figured if I could get this one running, then the next one should be a lot easier. Was not easy breaking it down, screws were frozen and it took some penetrating oil to get them free. The pics above are actually pretty generous. The barrel was in pretty bad shape and there was rust all around the mainspring. Took a lot of scrubbing and the tool o the day was a take out chopstick cut into a couple piece and run through a pencil sharpener. I ran all the parts through an ultrasonic detergent and the really bad ones I cleaned with naphtha and then mineral spirits in a jar in the ultrasonic. Wasn't too keen about using lighter fluid in an ultrasonic. They all came out pretty good, including the mainspring. Probably should replace the barrel, arbor and mainspring but I wanted to wind one manually so I reused it. The first pic is out of the ultrasonic, the second pic is before assembly. I watched a bunch of videos to check out different techniques, but ultimately I watched the ETA service video to put it together. Nice, concise, step by step, oil this , assemble that. Has nice graphics on the parts and their orientation. Getting the train barrel on right off the bat was a bit of adventure, but once that was on it moved pretty fast until a click screw shot into the ether when I squeezed the tweezers too hard. Getting the keyless spring in was an adventure. I didn't lose the spring, but had to go hunting for the yoke twice. The only "mistake" I made was installing the pallet bridge in upside down. I didn't figure that out until the balance wheel wouldn't turn. Once I figured out what was going on I flipped it over and it came to life. Didn't appear to screw up the pallet fork pinions. Tweaked it a bit to get it dialed in. Amplitude is not great, but it's running steady! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eikos 6,340 Posted January 3, 2021 (edited) Wow, that's impressive, great job and thanks for sharing! I hope to be able to showcase such skill one day. Edited January 3, 2021 by Eikos 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BravoDelta 22,511 Posted January 3, 2021 Nice job@tribefan . 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
judas9r 914 Posted January 3, 2021 Great work. I've ruined two of these just by looking at them. If you're in the UK I'll pop them in the post to you, you may be able to salvage some parts. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Flinnt 2,009 Posted January 3, 2021 Great work. I may have been known to send a few keyless springs flying across the room. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tribefan 6,768 Posted January 3, 2021 33 minutes ago, judas9r said: Great work. I've ruined two of these just by looking at them. If you're in the UK I'll pop them in the post to you, you may be able to salvage some parts. Thanks! I'm in the US and this is one of 3 of these I have so I'm good. This one will probably be the parts movement for the other 2. I've got a Swiss 6498 that I've had for a while. It runs fine but could use a service, so I'm practicing to get to that one. I'm sure one of the UK lads will ping you on that offer. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCRich 13,760 Posted January 3, 2021 Nice job! Its a bitch when the parts start flying about. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
