Breitling Cosmonaute: journey to perfection! [Cwazy-Style]

[cwazy1]

Alright... from the very start of my rep journey, I've wanted a navi, or cosmo... more so the cosmo because it was a 24 dial and was just SO EXOTIC!

I started with a shitty 21J faux chrono navi and then sold that and havent had a breitling slide rule watch since... up until about 2 weeks ago.

I ordered a cosmonaute from Ryan... he found one and I immediately snatched it up... I started with it on the rep gator, which was crap, so I threw on a calf immediately..

Now dont get me wrong, the watch is beautiful.. slide rule lines up PERFECTLY.

But...

RECESSED DATEWHEEL RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So I decided I would go in and mod this..

I cracked the watch open, pulled hands, dial, and got to the transfer plate.
The cosmo is a sec@3, meaning the seconds is transfered by gears to the 3oclock. Usually on the sec@12 and sec@6, the gears that transfer are not jeweled. the seconds @ 3 IS jeweled. making it FAR FAR less problematic. Its a great movement.

Here is what the xfer plate looks like.

As you can see it is jeweled. BUT... the plate has an exta plate chunk showing the 16 and 12.... the tricompax navi's dont have this and makes this mod easier to do on the non sec@3.. but whatever, I'm going to mod it.

The red line is where I need to cut...
Here is what it looked like with the plate off, showing all xfer gears.

OK, I chopped the plate, and made sure it fit and was smooth.

This was perfect, now I can lay a ETA 7750 DW over the xfer gears and get rid of the recession.

The DW needed to be sanded and the teeth chopped and filed.

Here is what the dial looked like before...

And now.. after!

These pics just show the DW sitting in there, its not yet mounted yet as my materials are in my other house.

I'll be updating this thread as the mod progresses.

 

[supernova]

damN son...mighty fine work...

 

[iggypop]

Stunning crazy can't wait to see it when it's done! Get some really good wristies better see some pix inthe wrist check threads:

 

[mike 8]

Very nice mod my friend.
Kept going back between
the 2 DW pics,
what a difference

 

[WingNut]

Nice!...good work Cwazy...makes a big difference...

 

[Rudy40]

This looks great! I have the same issue with mine.

 

[Strodda]

Looks damn good. How do you attach the DWO without sandwiching the gears?

 

[stevoo888]

Nice work, can't wait to see the final pic!

 

[cwazy1]

Thanks guys!

The key to getting the spacing right while ensuring that the gears dont bump into the DW is to make sure that your spacer ring is the correct height.

Since fishing line comes in many many pound strengths/thicknesses, I'll be experimenting with that. I hear that 10# is perfect, but I've also modded and sanded the crap out of my DW.

I want it to be as flush as possible to the original dial height so I dont risk stem misalignment.

 

[cwazy1]

so after alot of sanding and refitting and more sanding...

the issue lies in how the new DW sits... too high, and you create many issues... chrono hands dont fit, stem height, bumping into the dial... eta.

This is the best I could do after sanding off about half the thickness of the ETA DW.

Afterwards, its still a little high, so just use some tape to raise the dial.

This was a really hard mod to do, especially since sanding evenly is important and if not enough, it'll cause some friction.. At this point, the datechange is smooth from 1-25 but not a perfect click between 26-31... oh well, I can live with it. :lol: its a minor inconvienience to pay for a much much better DW!

 

[xpletiv]

Interesting and looks great!
Is there a detailed thread somewhere here on how this is done? So I may find out where exactly does the fishing line go? Exactly where? And does one glue the 2 DWs together? I get the idea just don't know the specifics.

I'll sit down and wait for an answer.
Thanks much!

 

[shaidx]

the date does look a whole lot better! hard work paid off big time!

 

[BigH]

sunken date wheel

I have a Breitling B01 with an asian clone 7750. LOVE the watch....but that darn sunken DW ( wrong color date too, should be black ) Is this mod a possibility for me? I am a noob here and a member on another site as well.Could you recommend someone to do this mod for me

Thanks for your help

BigH