Well, having posted on here before about my father's old 105.003, mainly looking for info about the faded bezel with a blue tinge, I have now finally got it back on my wrist, after a fairly involved restoration & service.

To cut a long (and quite frustrating) story short, the original dial, hands and crown were replaced by Omega when it was last serviced 13 years ago. My goal was to return it to the spec, if not necessarily the exact condition, as when he got it new in the mid '60s. The first and most obvious piece of rectification work, came in the form of replacing the service dial & hands with a period correct pre-pro dial and handset. After much debate, having originally decided to go with new crystal, crown & pushers in order to achieve the correct / stated level of water resistance, I eventually decided to retain the existing (correct, but not original to this watch) crystal and pushers, and source an earlier style crown, for that period vintage Speedy look.

Whilst I also stipulated no polishing on either the case or 7912 bracelet, I was very keen for the oily bits to be as perfect as possible for an almost 50 year old watch, so it received a full movement service. Interestingly the general condition of the movement was very good, with the exception of the 12 hour recorder bridge, driver and wheel, which were badly worn due to lack of lubrication it seems. The mind boggles, but maybe during one of its three previous visits to Omega, the chap doing the service was momentarily distracted at this point of the reassembly, perhaps by a rather stunning female colleague, and simply forgot to oil these parts!!! Anyway, new case back seals were also fitted, and the crown seal lubricated (the older period correct crown), as apparently you can't replace the seals / o-ring in the crown, unlike the pushers. The case has now passed a 'minimum level' of water resistance, i.e. it's dust and humidity proof, but no more, and certainly not waterproof. But I'm happy with this compromise, as I wouldn't be taking any Speedmaster, however new, anywhere near water...

So, unpacked it this afternoon, sized the bracelet via the micro adjust on the clasp, and popped it on. I love it. Can't stop lifting my sleeve to take a look at the golden plots, the blueish bezel, the delicate looking bracelet links (I'll probably pop it on a Nato for more regular use). This is obviously a firm keeper for me, and perhaps one day my son will also wear this fine watch with as much pride as I do.

Here are some pics, a 'before' shot, some during the work, before and after timing data, some wrist shots etc from earlier this afternoon, and a couple of pics I managed to dig out of the old man wearing the watch when it was just a couple of years old. Hope you like them as much as I do.
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So your Dad raced a Lotus 7, did he? The first picture of him looks rather like it might be Cornwall or Devon in the background. Nice write-up, great watch, thank you

 

Really like the blue bezel, very unique! Thanks for sharing, what a great story.

 

Thanks for the kind comments. It's the original bezel and dad seems to remember it getting gradually 'bluer' from not long after he got it. The rather unromantic explanation it seems is some dodgy paint used on a small number of early bezels on '64 examples. I've seen a couple of others (Henryjbird? on WUS?), and one of them (a 105.003-64) was near enough the exact same movement number as this one - a 22.08m.

Yes, the coast shot was Devon I think. He raced a couple of S1 Sevens in the mid-late 60's, the first was also road registered, the second, the one in the pic was full race. Interesting, I came across this very car at the Le Mans Classic in 2008, now beautifully restored. Quite spooky! Here's a pic of how it looks now, well 5 years ago.

 

So your father was in Devon in 1967 - and so was I, living in a little market town called Kingsbridge. I was working in a garage at the time, so I might well have filled up his Lotus

 

Really nice piece !
That bezel colour gives this time keeper a slight Rolex touch IMO

 

Great story, great watch!

 

Nicely done. With regards to the hour recorder runner, you don't say specifically what was worn, but if it was the cam, that is a fairly common wear point in my experience. Here is one example, but I see this very often, mostly on Cal. 321 watches, but also on some of the older 861's:





The cam wears quite a lot from resetting, and given that the chronograph runner cam and the minute recorder runner cam don't have the same wear, my thought is that these watches have suffered from hour recorder creep, and rather than having it fixed people have been constantly resetting the chronograph to zero out the hour recorder. The hour recorder can be reset without starting and stopping the chronograph, unlike the other two.

Just my own theory, but it's the only thing that makes sense as to why I see the wear here so often and not on the other 2 cams.

Cheers, Al

 

Very interesting and it makes a lot of sense. Sorry to go slightly off topic, but what are the most common c.321 parts that wear/need replacing Al?

 

Fantastic reportage, indeed.

 

I believe it was just the component you describe above; apparently, and I have very little knowledge of this myself, one or both of the other components mentioned were hardly worn, but due to the nature of their interaction, it was necessary to replace all three parts. I think I've relayed that correctly, if not then I apologise to my watchmaker!

 

Well the mainspring is the most common thing I replace, but that would go for any watch I service as I always replace them.

The next most common would be that hour recorder runner, and fortunately it is the same parts in the 321, 861, 1861, 1863....

And after that I can't say off the top of my head - that is a good thing though because it means there really isn't a huge weak spot in this movement IMO. I see more damaged parts than worn parts to be honest.

Cheers, Al

 

Hands up all of those who have just been checking their 321 or CH27.

 

Thanks, that's very interesting to know.