Hi,
Since I've been a member here, one of my all-time favourite watches was the 187 Chronograph. I first bought it almost two years ago, and never got enough of it.
I've been wearing it now even with a silly 7750 with white & (offcourse) sunken datewheel because it simple is the watch for me.
A broken strap buckle made me drop the watch on my office floor, and the a7753 movement was FUBAR. The chrono bridge is very bad (from factory) and now the balance staff is broken. So I read all of the info there was to find on fitting a swiss movement in my 187, and saw the attempt someone here made and failed, because of the swiss datewheel not lining up and the problems with hand sizes.
That didn't stop me wanting to go swiss though. I can live with compromise, as long as the chrono's work well and it keeps good time, AND if the datewheel is pretty much centered.
So here it goes:
I found, after months and months of searching, what I believe to be the perfect donor movement:
a Swiss 7753, from a Montblanc Timewalker Meisterstück Chronograph, same 3-6-9 position for subdials, and a black datewheel.
So I bid, and I won it for a very good price. It is malfunctioning though, so it will be repaired, but first I want to see if everything fits well...
Left is the a7750 I'm using now for a temp movt., center is the swiss 7753, and right the Asian 7753
Meet the Swiss Montblanc movement:
So as you may or may not know, the hands all fit except the chrono hand - which is too small to fit the gen.
But too small is no problemo! We have broaches & roomers! So with only a bit of work, the chrono hand fit just right!
As you can see there is a tiny gap in the date window, where the edge of the datewheel is visible, I will work around it eventually, it is not like that for all numbers, the 10 is the worst. I checked them all.
With the other numbers it is rater good:
Next week I will start work on the movement, it runs but the hands won't move.
Stay tuned!
