southcoast68 said:
Based on what I have read about the SMP chrono and its issues, I'll guess this.
1. You replaced the whole bracelet or at least the clasp from the broken GMT to fix the pin falling out issue.
2. You replaced the crown and tube and possibly the stem with the one from the broken GMT.
Thats my guess.
Fantastic thinking and good show of knowledge southcoast! The bracelet is original, and I haven't had any trouble with it yet but that is a problem on the SMP chrono's. Having them side by side I can tell you there is a definite difference in quality though, with the chrono's links being superior. The clasps are slightly different in size and I am not sure if they are exchangeable (the gmt bracelet has been sold).
The crown, tube, and stem are also a big problem on the chrono. I never expected anyone to guess this from the picture, but I did have to modify the stem. I did not count this as one of the 3 things though. The stem and crown caused the original damage to the asian 7750 whereby making the watch useless. It also damaged the swiss 7750 the first time I put it together (that was a huge setback)! I had to cut the stem down to relieve some of the pressure on the keyless works. This also means it looks almost normal without having to screw down the crown using the bad spring in the crown. R2D4 noticed this from the picture, good work! Something I didn't expect is that the crown can be screwed down and released much more easily now with the shortened stem, but I leave it unscrewed most of the time.
25 RW$ to southcoast for thinking hard and keeping the game alive.
Be sure to keep these in mind:
1. There is only one genuine PART on the whole watch. I've already said it isn't the dial or the insert. I said the gen part was needed because of change #2 (the swiss 7750). What is an annoying difference between the 28.8k asian 7750 and the swiss 7750... besides build quality? The part can be seen clearly in almost every picture I have posted, except the movement pics. It wasn't essential to replace when you do a swiss 7750 swap, except if you destroyed the rep part trying to modify it like I did. :x
2. If you didn't figure out I installed a Swiss 7750 already, you need more than a clue!
3. I bought the broken SMP chrono together with a broken asian Seamaster gmt. The previous owners had already did a bit of transplant surgery. Now, what is a common problem with SMP's that is fixed on mine? What could have gone wrong with someone originally trying to fix it (and was the topic of many threads)? Put 2 and 2 together for the part that these two watches share!
