Here goes nothing... FINAL UPDATE! For real this time!

A while back, I bought a 6309-7040 with the intention of doing my first modified watch. It took a while, but all of the parts and tools have finally made it to my house and it is ready to start. I will be using this thread to post updates photos to show the good, the bad and the ugly of the build.

This is the before picture:



This is what will be going into it and the tools being used:




The watch will get a new domed crystal, dial, chapter ring, hands, bezel, bezel insert, bracelet, crown and all new gaskets...with any luck, I will not smash it into pieces after a day.

Looks like it will be fun, but not for me. I would be throwing it across the room the first time i screwed up, that would be in the first 5 minutes. Everytime i try to do the simplest things to a watch (battery change) i screw it up somehow. I wish you a lot of luck and hope that it comes out perfect. I realy like that blue dial you picked up. Steve

COOL!!!!! Looks to be a great end project from the goodies I see. Why two dial and hand sets? I've done a couple 6309 mods myself; if you run into any snags and need a hand drop me a PM any time!

Good catch Chris. I acutally ordered two dials -- both blue, but one has C1 lume and the other has C3 lume (red dot on second hand too). I am on the fence between the two, so I bought one of each (hands and dials).

The dials are a little different on the date window too. One is day/date the other is just date.

Thanks for the offer to help out with questions...you may end up regretting that!

Holy cow Mark !!! Look at all of those parts ! Really looks
like you thought of everything here, and the watch looks ready
for an amazing transformation. Can just imagine what it's going
to look like when it's done. Looking forward to your updates
with this. I hope you have FUN with it !

take your time and good luck with the modding, looks like fun
can't wait to see the finished watch, I like the dials you chose

Sweet project! Can't wait to see it!

Start modding young man..........I just picked up something that I am going to restore myself. Looking forward to seeing yours!

And....so it begins!

I figured that I could probably work on this project in my office at lunch. So, I gathered all of the parts, tools...etc. and brought them to work this morning!

I first took off the strap:





I removed the caseback:



With the caseback off and the case in a case holder, I used a toothpick to depress the crown release and pulled the crown out:





Once the crown was out, I turned the case/case holder over...nothing came out. So, I used a toothpick to pry a little at the movement/movement spacer. After a few tries, it loosened and fell into my hand:








I then placed the movement into a movement holder in preparation for removing the hands/dial:







Done for the day -- took about 15 minutes, with care.



The one thing that I forgot was finger cots! I need to order them!!!

killer bro,can't wait until she's done

You REALLY seem to be a pro at this Mark ! Wow !!! Looks like it's
starting off VERY smoothly. TERRIFIC job so far ! ..Thanks very much for
doing these updates. They are fantastic to see ! Good luck !!!

So far so good!! Now comes the tough stuff...crystal replacement, etc. Watch out for that movement holder; I've had a couple that were a PITA when getting everything all back together.

Thanks for the update. Looking good!

OK…Day 2!

I had a little time today, so I tackled the remaining disassembly (other than crown) of the watch during my lunch.


First, I removed the bezel. To avoid marring the case, I put a little painters tape on the area that I would be working in. I slipped the tool under the bezel, twisted with a little pressure and….popped off.






Once the bezel was off, I then worked on removing the crystal retaining ring. The technique was exactly the same as for the bezel. It was a little tighter, but with a bit of pressure on the twist, it popped off too.






Since I will be experimenting with different bezels (I will be brushing one out), I removed the bezel insert. This was pretty easy! All I did was apply a little pressure to the underside of the insert with my finger tip and it came free.



The next step that I did was to prepare for the crystal remover. The case press that I bought has a bunch of nylon inserts that are meant to be used for different watches and purposes. I selected one that fit inside the case from the back and another that held the front of the case just larger than the crystal.




I put the case/crystal into the press with the case back side up. One little push and the crystal, chapter ring and inner ring with gasket came out into the bottom insert. That was much easier than I imagined!






I gathered the parts and put the sensitive parts in individual envelopes to keep them from getting damaged. The rest went into a sealed container and are ready to clean this weekend…that will involve lighter fluid, an ultrasonic cleaner, toothbrush and dish soap!



That all took around 15 minutes with taking my time and being careful.

Having the right tools sure make it easier. you got a lot done in those 15 minutes, cant wait to see how this one turns out. Now that you have the tools im sure you will be modding more watches in the future. Steve

You definitely have a real knack for this Mark. Just the way you think everything
through, and are able to figure what to do is excellent. Honestly think this is going
to be a breeze for you, and then you will be on to the next project just like Steve
said. Keep up the great work, and keep having fun !

Thanks for the step by step, along with detailed pictures with all of this.

Thanks guys!

I actually really like it so far. It takes my mind off of work for a short time and I get refocused!

But this is the easy stage...I predict rough waters ahead!

Great "show and tell" so far Mark. Looks like you could open a little shop with all those tools you have. Best of luck for the rest of your project.

Ok, to finish of preparation, I decided to clean the metal parts and brush out the existing bezel.

First, I stopped by the store on my way home to buy an ultrasonic cleaner, lighter fluid and some sand paper.



I put all of the metal case parts into the ultrasound and put them through two cleaning cycles. That did a pretty good job cleaning out all of the funky wabi from the parts. Afterwards, I followed up with soap, hot water and a dental tool to get the difficult buggers.




Once that was done, I packaged each part separately with wax paper and put them in a sealed container. The only part that I kept out was the old bezel. Since I wanted to see if a bright or brushed bezel would look better, I decided to hand brush one to see. The old bezel had some dings, so I started with sandpaper on the top edge and lightly around the edges. Then I followed up with a scotchbrite pad over the entire piece. I think the end result looks nice…but we can reserve judgment until it is back on the watch (if that day ever comes!).






Now all that is left is to clean that crud off of the movement rotor! I am not sure if I will try it while installed or attempt to take it off! <<<---- That makes me nervous!!!!!!

Mark, looks like you are still knocking it out of the park !
I know you said rough waters might still be ahead, but
from what you are showing us, it looks like that time
hasn't come yet. It's really very interesting seeing how
professionally you are doing all of this. Guess you were
really paying attention to Ron, Trevor, and Chris when
they did stuff like this. Phenomenal job so far !

P.S. Deciding to brush the bezel was very ingeneous, AND
it looks awesome too. Thanks again for the updates !

Now all that is left is to clean that crud off of the movement rotor! I am not sure if I will try it while installed or attempt to take it off! <<<---- That makes me nervous!!!!!!


That's probably the easiest thing to do compared to what you have done so far, just one screw. If it's really bad I believe Noah Fuller had replacements on his site.

The brushed bezel came out sweet, looks like this is going to turn out great. Cant wait to see the next update. Steve

nice work and cool to see the progression pictures Mark

OK…Day 3



Once again, I had some free time at lunch and tackled a few tasks on my mod watch project. My intention today was to get the movement stripped down and ready for reassembly.



The first thing that I wanted to do was to remove the old aftermarket hands. This was something that I was a little nervous about! The tools that I used for this were a scratch protector sheet, a hand remover tool and a pair of tweezers. The one thing that I forgot with my other steps was to align all of the hands, so I had to reinstall the crown and positioned the minute and hour to 12-o’clock. However…that still left me with a second hand that was out of alignment. So, I moved the rotor a bit and eventually the hand stopped “close enough” to work (at least in my mind!).







It took me a few tries to get the tool properly positioned so the “claws” were able to reach under all three of the hands so that it would pull them off at once…eventually I got it right! With one squeeze of the extractor tool, all three hands popped off and I put them on my work surface (a lint free cloth). I then packaged them up for future use.











Next up was the dial. The dial contains two posts on the back surface that extend through the movement to keep them in place. For some reason, the dial did not want to budge!! So, I used a pair of my fine point tweezers to try and pry the dial away from the movement ring (aka “green plastic thing”). Eventually, I got the points between the dial and ring and tried to gently pry them apart. This worked to a point…then, I had to pry back pieces of the movement holder to completely free-up the dial. In doing so, I broke a small piece of the ring off…hopefully that will not be a big deal down the road!











Now that the movement was completely free, I turned my attention to attempting to clean the dark marks off of the rotor. Based on what I read, a “home remedy” for this was to use lighter fluid to break it up and clean off the grime.







For this next step, I put the movement back into the movement holder for more stability. At first, I wanted to take the rotor off so that I could concentrate on the part and not worry about the rest of the movement…but, the slot in the screw is so shallow that I could not get any of my screwdrivers to “bite”. So…on to plan B, doing the job while the rotor was connected!







Well, I poured a very small amount of lighter fluid into a cup and got a Q-tip. I put on my finger cots to make sure that I didn’t leave a finger print on the movement and then picked up the movement to try to clean it. Well….evidently the dark spots are pitting or some other deposit (the surface is a little rough) that the fluid did not effect the spot and did not clean off. So, I have decided to leave it a as-is and move on!









So, I put movement and movement holder in an airtight container for safe keepings and packaged up the dial and movement ring (sans little part). I am now ready to move onto reassembly!



The next update will definitely be interesting!!!!!!!


Oh yeah.....took about 45 minutes.

Wowee, this DOES look like it's getting much more difficult now.
Nevertheless, it still looks like you have things more than under
control so far Mark. Can't say enough how cool all of this is that
you are doing, and how helpful the detailed step-by-step of every-
thing is ! When all is said, and done, this watch is going to
turn out great I think.

Thanks very much, and continued good luck with it !

Looking good so far! Ahhh... that movement holder ring...I have had my share of trouble with them. Just be patient when reassembling, the broken ring can be a pain when getting it all back together!

Excellent so far Mark! Hope your getting something to eat on your lunch break when working on the watch

It's very interesting to see the individual steps. I'm not quite ready to tackle a project yet but you seem to be doing well at it. Enjoyed reading all your updates, thanks for sharing them.

Day 4…
I only worked on one thing today…a pretty important thing that I could not find any guidance on – the removal of the feet from my new dial! For my project, I selected one of Noah Fuller’s XW dials in glossy blue. The one catch in this selection is that this dial was designed to be used with a Seiko 7s26 movement, not a 6309A movement. The reason for this is that the dial feet on the dial do not match up with the feet of a 6309A dial and, therefore, are not compatible with a Seiko 6309A movement. Based on my reading, this can be resolved…


Truth be told, I am not very handy and do not have many tools. So…I had to run out to get some cutters and a file to do this task. This took a little time, but I had just enough time to do the work. So, I grabbed the dial, cutters and file. You can see the feet in the pictures below:




I then used the cutters to nip off as much of the feet as possible:




I next used the file to grind the remains down to the surface of the back of the dial.




This brings me to my first moment of panic on this project! Once I had the feet removed, I started thinking of my next steps…and then it hit me! How was I going to line up the dial at 12 o’clock if there are no feet to guide me? After a few minutes, I figured out something that I can do. I am not sure if it is the best way to do it, but there isn’t any guidance on the net regarding this…wish me luck folks! I see frustration on the horizon!!

Wow Mark! Very Hairy Times in deed..............in regards to lining up the dial, how about using the date window and the dates on the movement?

I thought of that too. But, unfortunately it can look "right" in several positions on the date wheel. One thing that compounds it is the fact that this new dial is date only and the original is day/date.

Use the old dial to mark the date that will line up with the new dial.

Use the stem insertion hole as your guide post....will always be 4 o'clock

Your getting there!! Just take your time and im sure it will come out great. Goodluck and thanks for the updates, This has been very interesting and fun at the same time. Steve

Northwestguy wrote:

Use the old dial to mark the date that will line up with the new dial.

That was my thought too...we think alike

cski wrote:

Use the stem insertion hole as your guide post....will always be 4 o'clock

That is a great idea too...

You guys are making this easy for me