WSRUW: What Seiko Are You Wearing Today?

Recently completed 7C43-7009.

I bought this as a non working 7C43 with obvious water ingress, I was expecting that the movement would likely be toast but would be an interesting restoration job, especially with the 200m rating and screw down crystal retaining ring.
Upon opening the case back, I found the crown was snapped off the stem and the stem spring was rusted to the tube. It took a fair bit of time to free the stem and then I was able to remove the movement and inspect the dial and hands. Thankfully the dial and hands were near perfect with no damage. Next to the movement and due to the amount of rust flakes inside the case, I decided to completely strip and service it. No major dramas as the movement is relatively straight forward although the circuit board was slightly discoloured, I had a spare 7C46 movement if I needed any parts. The movements are actually quite different but share many of the same components.
So with the 7C43 movement back together after servicing, added a Kanji day wheel for good measure, and a new battery in, nothing was happening and I thought with these movements you could just put the battery in and they would start up. Anyway with nothing happening I swapped the circuit board and coil from the 7C46 but still nothing, and since there is not much else in there which could be faulty I put it all back to original thinking the worst. Then tried the shorting of the contacts and the movement sprung to life...doh, guess I should have tried that first 😁
Next on to the case. The retaining ring for the crystal was pretty tight but I have an old heavy duty case back removing stand which made it really easy. Although the 7C43 has a different crystal number than the 6309/7548, they both appear to be identical. Cleaned up the case and fitted a new 7548 crystal. The stem however was a bit more complex, initially I thought a standard 6309 / 7548 crown and stem would work but after fitting the 7C43 stem, I found that it was fractionally too short so I had to machine down a 7C46 stem and fit it to the 6309 crown.
With everything back together with new gaskets and a pressure test, the watch looks pretty good and worth the effort 👍

Before (sellers photos)


After

Hooray for Seiko Saturday!

Just arrived. 7002-7039 transitional diver from 1994. For some reason, I really like the combination of the unusual silver-y lume and just the date (no day) on the 7002s.