This Rolex 16613 came in recently for attention to the obvious smashed crystal but also for a movement service. The watch wasn’t particularly in need of one, but if you just change the crystal without checking the rest of the movement it can cause expensive damage so it’s a very sensible precaution. It’s good to see the movement had been hacked, this stops any possibility of hands getting bent or wheels being damaged by loose pieces of sapphire crystal.

The caseback is the usual plain Rolex affair.

The first job is to uncase the movement and see what damage there is to the dial and handset, I always remove the oscillating weight….

….and the autowind mechanism before uncasing if at all possible.

With the retaining screws undone the movement was uncased, this is an illustration of the hundreds of minute shards that get everywhere. And the big one that can scratch the dial surface of course!

The crystal was the next thing to be removed….

….so bezel the bezel comes off first which allows the crystal retaining ring to be removed.

With it taken off the individual components can be cleaned, the nylon crystal seal will be replaced.

With the dial and handset removed you can see even with the watch unused and the movement hacked particles have still made their way through to the  calendar work where they will at best jam the movement and at worst bend or break the teeth on the high torque wheels.

The calendar side strip down continued.

Once I was at this stage the movement was turned over and I started stripping the motion work.

Now I’d got to this stage the components were ready for cleaning and inspection.

After inspection the rebuild began, starting with a new mainspring.

I’ve posted about the calibre 3135 movement and rebuild before so I’ll let the pictures do the talking 🙂

The dial and handset were refitted at this point, incidentally cleaning the tiny crystal shards off the dial is a very laborious process. They are so small and sharp a lot of them actually dig into the lacquer layer and have to be individually removed as a blower will only deal with a certain amount of loose pieces!

The movement is then recased….

….the caseback is fitted and it’s turned over….

….and the new crystal and nylon gasket are fitted.

The reason the movement is fitted first is to allow me to get the cyclops (the date magnification bubble) lined up exactly on top of the date window.

With the crystal retaining ring, springs and bezel refitted there she is, fit for a few more years service!