Hi Everyone,
My name is Alex and I snagged a clean looking chrono quartz from Germany last year for about $500US. It was an estate find, only came with a photocopied manual.
On arrival it fired up but the screen was funny. The movement didn't work either sadly.

I stripped it down, cleaned the board and LCD, got a donor 1320 movement (after stuffing around with a seller who sold me a 1330 and called it a 1320 and refused to refund - lost money on that one).
Hey atleast now I know how to service a 1330 as well.

I fitted a donor motor from a NOS 1320 last night and BOOM - shes away.

I don't know how long it will last - I haven't oiled the inside of the NOS motor. I presume it is a 40 year old movement but it was ticking away strongly.
Anyone have advice????

The old motor has 2.4kohm resistance, spins freely now after being cleaned, however weirdly doesn't run.
I am tempted to give it another delicate clean - now that I have a good one. As its good to have a backup or to sell it to recoup some money.

Total outlay about $1000 AUD so far. Not bad for a mint 1611 with what appears to be a virgin service dial in like new condition, no yellowing whatsoever.
The hands are great too - very white - no fade.

Lume is dead - I won't bother - too delicate a hand to stuff around with.

Anyone interested I'm selling a donor case etc on the bay at the moment that will come up with a search.
I have a donor 1320 if anyone needs - minus motor.

It's a very heavy watch.
It was my grail for ages- now I have it I'm not so sure I'll keep it. It is quite plain looking and a speedmaster has so much more zazz! for the same money.

Anyway - enjoy the photos - ask me any technical questions I can help

Alex

 

Well done, quite a beast indeed, need to dig out mine !

 

Hi, I have 3 of this watches, 2 of them I was able to repair on my own, thanx to info from Piotr (crazywatches.pl). You will find a lot of useful info on servicing this watch.
Your dial looks as new, because it is a replacement dial with no lume on the hour markers.
Repairing the motor is a very delicate job, as probably the ultra thin wire from the coil is snapped.
Can you send me in the PM the link to your spare parts? I can`t find it, thanx.
My latest tuning

 

Hi Knudsen,
Did you reverse that one with some polarizing film???

The parts just sold on ebay for $100USD or so - quite sad it was so low, but still. Shows how few people left that can fix them and are keen.

Mine is running great.
I wonder why omega changed the dial - it is sad - a Service dial is fine though for originality - as it is not exactly a 12k Speedmaster.
It is not a replica dial right???? My hands look like original hands, not service hands as the lume is darker than yours.

Do you have any bits and pieces for sale?
I'd love a tighter bracelet, or a gasket for less than $60 on ebay.

The motor still had resistance, no tears in the wire.

it is sold now - but I hope the new buyer will fix it!

Have you seen the version on a leather strap? If you search Omega 1611 prototype you will see it! That was my plan with the other one before I sold it.

 

Hi,
yes, while the original filter and foil was melted, as on many vintage pieces, I tried to fix it based on the guide at crazywatches.pl
And I could not resist to try to turn the foil 45 degrees for inverse dial. It is very nice looking, when surrounded by the black face of the watch.
And as it is easy to convert back, I left it so for a while.
To the dial and service parts in general: The watch left the factory with tritium lumed dial and white date wheel. But Omega service dial is without the lume and also the service date wheel is silver. Only one of my 3 pieces is having the genuine configuration.
Also there are two types of the masking under the sapphire glass - the genuine ones are in shade of grey, the service one is black.
Nowdays Omega is having not much parts left, they have run out of the 1611 modules in late 90ties.
Also the service hands the offer today are from Mariner model, as having tipped hour hand, can be also seen on some pics on the internet.
I have searched for the "prototype", but it looks to me as a mod. And not very difficult mod indeed The colorful masking looks like very cheap tuning to me https://www.watchprosite.com/omega/prototype-seamaster-chrono-quartz-case/677.1258691.10514481/

To the parts - I have no spares left, thats why I was asking for a link to your auction
I will have at least one of my 3 for sale soon, but all are full working watch. Luckily all my 3 bracelets are perfect tight.

 

Hi guys. The mod to the case was probably pretty difficult as there is insufficient material on a standard case to create the lugs, so it would have been necessary to bond/weld additional material to create a complete lug with nice profile. You can see this extra material when the “lugged” case is compared to a standard case.

And the black masking inside is different to a standard one so it looks like it wasn’t an after mod either. The parts came from an ex-omega employee’s estate with a lot of other test/dummy cases from Connies/Seamasters/etc. A forum friend with contacts in Biene asked and they believe it to be legitimate, probably made by the case supplier, either on request of Omega or from the initiative of the supplier. There are better images and more background here.

https://omegaforums.net/threads/colourful-montreal-olympic-chrono-quartz-with-unusual-lugs.35994/

 

Hi, thanx for linking me to the thread. Interesting. To me it looks like a nice solution for a case, that has snapped of the tubes, that connects the bracelet to the case, as they are just spot welded to the case. What is dragging me off to believe it is a factory prototype, is the color schema on the crystal. Hard to believe, that this was meant seriously. Looks like somebody tells to me to do such a crazy tuning for him
Also this looks like the black service sapphire glass, where the writing is painted directly on the glass, while the watch originally had a dark grey insert between the crystal and case. Why would the prototype have a later service crystal?
But just my opinion, I might be wrong of course
What I`d like to see are the FIFA Albatross pictures, are there any pieces around?

 

Wow that's great info! I didn't know I had a service crystal as well. It did look different to my parts one - the masking is black indeed with bigger OMEGA writing.
I do like having a mint crystal - although shame it is service. I suppose if it was done by omega?

Curious - but how is the crystal held in? Is it a press in bezel - or is the crystal glued in?
Are we certain it is sapphire???

 

@Knudsen1971 many thanks it’s very interesting about the crystal, and apart from the color of the text I figured it was the same, but it does appear to be different from the original. There is a slight blue color to the edges of the glass, and more certain there are differences in the font used for the text. A good example is the length of the “E” in Omega (long on my standard case, short on my lugged case). These are new observations for me




So that does raise some questions in my mind. The circumstantial evidence shows that there’s a direct link to Omega, but really after that the origin of the case today is uncertain. For me the lugs look like a very complicated piece of work, not so much the bonding, more the well aligned machined profiles. I doubt a hobbyist could do this, but maybe an ex-Omega guy could if he had the tools and that was his specialism.

What would be interesting would be to date the crystal if it is indeed a service one. Do you know when that crystal was first introduced ? Or do you have images of other service crystals to confirm the blue hue and the short “E” ?

 

Alexei, you were typing the same time as me. So your crystal looks like mine with a short “E”. That’s interesting. Is there any chance that you have a picture of the service crystal taken from the inside ?

@alexei.joukovski I mean a photo comparable to this. Would be great to see a standard grey text service crystal from that side.

 

If that happened, wouldn’t it be much easy to make and fix new tubes ? Seems an odd way to go about repairing, if the basic target of the repair was to get it wearable, and the case shows no noticeable damage which you might expect if there had been an abusive load on the tubes.

Plus it was just a case when I bought it, with no signs of the movement amongst the estate. But of course there’s no way of knowing much, we can only guess...

 

Here’s a picture from the original thread, but I don’t know if it’s a service or original crystal ? Is it obvious to you guys ?

 

Well, of course the tube can be welded back, even it is still tricky to do that. I must say from my experience, that converting it to lugged version is more straightforward job, than trying to weld back the tubes If you have tools and skills, you can do that. I have a friend, who is able to this conversion during a weekend in his garage...no rocket science.
Ty the sapphire crystal. Yes, the service one has shorter E and blue/violet shading on the edges. The picture I posted with the inverted display watch has got this service crystal also, compare the E, same as on your tuned crystal.

See here the pis of the genuine watch, with its original crystal and grey insert between the watch and crystal from the inside. As I said, it is separated from the glass, the glass itself is clear with no any imprint on it.

 

yes, this is obviously the service crystal - writing is painted directly on the crystal.
And yes, this crystal is just pressed in, seated in black vinyl seal.

 

I still don’t really get why it would be easier to convert to lugs. The tubes would be really easy to remanufacture if they couldn’t be re-used (I mean even I could do that), and surely the welding is pretty simple too. For lugs you need more equipment for profiling, plus of course the lug holes need drilling and they’re blind holes so I guess fiddly to attempt with a standard drill or require specialist angle drill. Anyway it’s my feeling that at least the mod was done primarily to change the design, not just to return to a wearable condition.

 

If there was just the case moded, I would be not that suspicious. The colored service crystal makes me unsure about it.
But this discussion will never be solved, until there is some record found for this prototype.

 

Yes it’s interesting about the crystal. It would be nice to know when the service crystal first became available, and when the CQ production stopped. It appeared in catalogues in 76 and 77, but I haven’t seen it later (although there are not many catalogues online from 78-85 so it’s hard to tell).

 

I'm having a wee problem - it appears my chrono quartz looses an hour or two here or there.
I currently having tried it on regular 1.55v baterries (mismatched - possible cause of problem) and on 1.4v zinc air bat's while I wait for genuine batteries.
It appears to run but lose an hour or so. The calendar works if you click it across so the gear train is fine.

Any thoughts? Could there be a chipped tooth somewhere? I really don't want to strip it down again haha!

 

There is a trimmer screw, which can adjust the beat to +-5 sec/day maximum. If you loose hour a day, that is an issue.
What happens, if you try to adjust the time by pressing the crown? Does the minute hand run smoothly?
Does the chronograph display works correctly?

Modern 1,55V 393 Renata battery is fine, I have running on this all of mine... should not cause any problems

 

Thanks, the time advances beautifully.
It has actually run well overnight.

I am curious if my watch box was somehow pressing on the crown or the pushers and draining the battery?

I want to make sure it is 100% should I ever sell it!.

Would you suggest stripping the NOS motor and cleaning it? or Leave it???

I would love for the watch to last a long time - hopefully another 10-20 years