550 series movement reversing gear oiling question

The gold standard is disassembly. However, as you say it's not easy without the proper tools and replacements of these are not cheap. Omega doesn't actually make these new anymore, so all that I replace are sent back for exchange - they are remanufactured and used again. You can only buy the remanufactured versions now from Omega.

72205501464MR | WINDING WHEEL, RECYCLED

I have 2 watches of my own that use the 550 series movements, so I have done some experimenting on those to see how alternate lubrication methods have worked. I've done this two ways:

1 - used an oiler to place some 9010 right into the wheel - open the split between the two wheels and just stick some oil in there. I used a fair bit of oil to be extreme here, because on a modern reversing wheel that would cause it to malfunction and seize up during manual winding. On these, no ill effects from doing that. Watch is hand winding fine and auto winding fine, but I haven't yet serviced it since doing this, so I can't speak to the life of this oiling yet.

2 - used Lubeta V105 - this is the solution used for modern reversing wheels, so treated this wheel in the same way as the modern wheels would be done. Submerged for about 1 minute, then excess removed with a blower, and left under a cover to dry. Again no issues with hand or auto winding, and I've serviced the watch since doing this and the winding wheel (what this part is called) is fine.

So my conclusion is that in terms of lubrication, these are much more tolerant of imperfect application than a modern reversing wheel is. The thing that this doesn't do that disassembly does, is get the inside of the wheel perfectly clean. So if this would work will depend entirely on how effective your cleaning regime is.

Note that with modern reversing wheels, they are now recommending that they be changed at every service, rather than cleaned and used again. This recommendation comes primary because these cannot be disassembled, so you have no idea how much wear might be on the parts inside.

Cheers, Al