Restoring a Rusted Water Damaged Rolex GMT - INSANE Before & After !

[Music] all right everyone welcome back to the channel like I said I've been cooking up I've been trying to get a ton of content out for you guys so don't forget like comment share and subscribe also my Instagram name has changed there'll be an update on that next week guys don't want to miss next week's video it's a Banger I promise you going to be the last one before the year ends so stay tuned for that for now let's get on with this restoration let's jump right in and see what we got so first thing I pull out is going to be this oyster bracelet now this is a 16700 reference GMT this is a noncl watch and unfortunately this watch has seen better days someone sent this in he ended up going in the ocean and unfortunately it got water logged and it's been sitting for a few months so first thing I noticed as soon as I open up this case back this thing is wrecked I mean it's absolutely wrecked every single part on here is completely seized here I am trying to move the rotor around I mean it just doesn't want to go so I can actually see the balance wheel moving a little bit but this thing needs a full restoration and that's what we're going to do so as you guys can see there is just a ton of rust build up I don't know exactly how long this has been sitting but but a lot of this water has just converted over to rust pretty much all the bridges all of the capules the balance the hairspring a lot of the screw heads are just completely gone this one here has decided to disintegrate so this is not going to be fun by any means it's not going to be easy however I love getting stuff like this done you know bringing it back to life and putting it back on someone's wrist I mean it's just a great feeling so I mean there's a ton of sand in this watch I mean there's so much buildup there's rust and every thread there's rust all in the tube channel I mean this thing is not going to be easy once again guys if your watch gets water logged don't put it in rice it needs to be addressed immediately so now first thing we're going to do is we're going to start removing hands now this dial is 100% aftermarket I mean this thing is crumbling at the tip of the tweezer not a good quality dial at all but we'll address that later on going to pull the dial off here remove the date carrier plate once again rust m it way all the way up to here so now this is where the real fun begins trying to disassemble this watch I mean a ton of these screw heads they are just not coming out now when you have stuff like this you're pretty much your only option is either a the screw comes out or be it stripped now here's the automatic module this thing is completely seized all the reversing Wheels the rotor I mean just absolutely everything here completely seized I'm going to try and disassemble this but a lot of these screws are just completely stripped they're going to need to be drilled out or extracted one way or another so to my surpris this thing actually came apart flawlessly however these things have seen better days these are not savable parts I mean the bridge itself we could probably repair and save but a lot of these smaller finicky Parts you just can't reuse it's not worth it it's not worth the headache in the long run going to start taking absolutely everything apart the rotor itself is completely completely seized inside of there so I'm going to have to break that apart by hand now we get a better look going to keep on moving disassembling this we're going to take the screws out of the balance Bridge once again the balance Bridge itself is actually seized on the studs so we get that out take a closer look at that a little bit later remove the balance guard now we can move over to the train Wheels remove that bridge once again surprise surprise nice amount of rust even these wheels I know the Great Wheel the second wheel and you know the third wheel it might look good on camera however under a microscope these things are just not reusable so right here is when I realized how quickly my luck had ran out these main plate screws they're just completely disintegrated they are stuck in the main plate they're going to have to be drilled out extracted a lot of these parts are just fused together they just don't want to come apart so a lot of these things are going to have to be taken apart in sections fully assembled just the only way to get this thing fully apart so I could start cleaning and make sure what's reusable and what's not I mean the barrel here is stuck to the bridge the ratchet wheel there's sand underneath this bridge I mean there's just no saving it going to pull off this minute pinion pull out the balance stop nice amount of rust under there now we can flip it to dial side up and start moving this carrier plate so we got the date wheel off and you guys will notice one of these screws was completely fused to this carrier plate it had to be rolled out it's not the cleanest but I will have to address that later you guys will see it right there top left get the carrier played off and I mean look at the amount of rust this is a part that can be saved just got to be cleaned up I'm going to start removing all the motion Works get out the date wheel mounted pretty much Start disassembling everything up top a lot of this keyless work stuff I'm expecting there to be a ton of rust but you never really know now anyone that works on these watches you know how much pressure is actually behind this little spring once you get this date wheel mounted off there's a tiny little Jewel let go of the spring too quick and that thing is going to fly away you'll never find it but so to my surprise there's not a lot of rust under these parts but for the most part this can be cleaned up I'm just hoping I can get all these strips screws out so that I could save this main plate now this this right here is where all the fun begins guys now we can start the cleanup this is where you really see where things are salvageable and you start seeing this watch come back to life now this is just a two mix polish with a piece of pegwood I'm going to go over all the bridges I need to make sure that every single piece of rust is gone now bridges are actually made out of breast they're just nickel plated and if you rub too hard a lot of this stuff is going to come off the only way to save that is to replate it but this is so meticulous guys I I don't think a lot of people understand how much work goes into something like this you really need to get into every nook and crevice of all these parts it's not simple it's not Qui quick it's not clean and more importantly it is not easy very timec consuming process but we're going to keep on moving along so as soon as I got to this point I actually realized this rotor has so much pitting there's so much rust that's actually eaten through the top coat I mean there's just nothing that I could really do I could only clean it up to the point where it's perfectly fine and usable but I'm going to have to refinish the underside of this so that's what I'm doing here I'm lapping it on just a piece of 600 grit sandpaper just to get out a majority of the pitting put a nice finish back on it and make sure that we have nothing flaking off I mean it's not going to win any beauty pageants but that's not the point here we got off all the rust most of the pitting basically we're just going for 100% functionality now this is a preliminary cleaning there's a ton of time it's very meticulous but you can't just do this once and call it a day as you can see there's some Rust left over on this post for the click so this going to be a multiple stage cleaning this is pretty much just to assess the damage see what's usable and what is not it's balance Bridge itself completely not usable at this point I'm just cleaning it for fun there's way too much rust built up in the screw post that connects the hairspring KE all the capules they're just gone so right here OCD got the best of me yet again a lot of the keyless Works components they just the finishes they were just completely gone after being cleaned up so I was trying to refinish them trying to make them look all pretty a lot of these are going to be replaced anyway just for functionality purposes but I still wanted to try and fix them up try and make them look all pretty so Hand lapping absolutely everything making sure we have nice Factory finishes it's just more of a fun project just wanted to see if I could do it and I was pretty happy with the outcome so with the movement all cleaned up now I can turn my attention over to this screw so usually I'll drill these out and extract them however it's a painstaking process here's something that I actually learned pretty recently use some alum powder inside of a Boiling Pot and believe it or not the results are insane this will actually dissolve any steel components it's not quick by any means drilling it out and retapping is a lot quicker but you guys can actually see the screw dissolving here pretty wild it actually worked I didn't have to drill this one out thank God but this was not quick it took roughly almost a day or two days to actually come out so I mean you be the judge figure out how you want to spend your time so I'm going to keep on disassembling here we're going to start removing all the cap Jewels give everything a final rinse in 99% alcohol just before we throw it in the machine so now everything's rinsed off everything's pretty much clean so now we can start putting everything away in baskets now smaller more fragile Parts such as the Escape wheel cap Jewels little things like that Springs you don't want them hitting into other heavier movement parts so I like to separate everything now we can put everything back in load up this basket and then we're ready to put it in the cleaning machine so I know everyone's going to ask me Peter what type of cleaning machine is this guys this is an l&r mastermatic cleaning machine I was lucky enough to find one New Old Stock in the original packaging and it was a great deal so you could pretty much find these just about anywhere our first rinse is going to be in Zenith cleaner 777 it's going to go through this multiple times but now we can turn our attention back over to the workstation guys you want to make sure that this is perfect ly clean so as soon as everything comes out of that machine we're ready to rock so while everything's getting cleaned up I decided to take a look through all the Carnage I mean there's just so much rusted up stuff here it just really amazes me I mean it's pretty crazy rolex's build quality but now we're going to move over to the next step it's going to go into 1001 once again another Zenith cleaner I like to do two rinses in this two separate jars just to make sure it's fully clean so here's a prime example parts that we cannot reuse I mean just none of this stuff is usable so first pass in the 101 is good we're going to rinse this off before we move over to the next step and our balance wheel now this is completely gone I mean there's nothing I can do with this there's too much rust in the hairspring and on the actual balance itself but now we can move over we're on our last and final cleaning stage taking a look at more parts this is the setting lever detent I mean this thing is just gone I can't use it a lot of the crown Wheels yolks I I mean just all this stuff needs to be replaced so now at this point this is when I like to kick on the heater just so as soon as this is done in this cleaning stage I could rinse everything off and throw it right in the heater now guys if you're trying to clean watch Parts by hand especially brass wheels and stuff if you clean them and then leave them out to oxidize without drying fully they will Rust it'll be all for nothing but we'll put it right in the heater take this out and we're good to start taking this basket apart so now we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel I'm super happy with how this is working out guys I was trying to get the best camera angles bear with me I will figure them out eventually just winded up our fresh new main spring now we can start getting the barrel ready and get this thing put in so now we're getting the barrel itself ready I like to apply a very thin amount of braking grease all around the barrel wall same thing with the arbor itself you guys have to remember this is a part that comes into contact with another part so nice a little bit hp300 this will prevent any wear and tear put the cap back on and then close this thing up and there we go so now we have a fresh Barrel this one's perfect it's imperfect working order so now what I like to do is check my barrel and Shake there's going to be some tolerance you need tolerance for something like this once again this is a moving part so if there is no endshake within the arbor it just won't deliver power correctly so a lot of people ask what are these little pink Stones so these are cap Jewels they hold oil basically suspend it so it reduces friction over wheel pivots now I tried to over oil these however this is not enough oil I just wanted to give you guys a visual representation it needs a nice circle it needs to be clean so it fits between the Springs basically the left and right side that's how we know we have enough oil so now we could turn our attention over to this stem now this is not reusable I mean there's way too much pitting and it's just not cost effective new stem is pretty cheap so I'm going to actually replace it soon as I removed this Crown I realized why water got in here this gasket is completely the wrong size and it more than likely did not made up with the tube allowing water to come in so we got a fresh stem here I just cut it shaved it and now we could reinsert it back onto the crown so now here's our winding and sliding pinion I'm going to paint these brigades teeth with 9504 few dabs painted on lightly this stuff is going to spread itself out regardless so now we can put back on the yolk for the sliding pinion make sure everything is working and functioning properly it's moving freely and then we could apply some 954 just to the face of this just so when I put the Yol for the setting wheel on it's already there once again more lubrication needed this is for the setting lever detent so now we can get this set down once again we want to apply 9504 to the Yol for the setting wheel just so when this is all connected we could check for functionality and start spreading out that grease everything's working great so now we can flip this movement over and move on to the next step so now we're reassembling it we're going to start by putting our Barrel in once we have our minute pinion and minute pinion Bridge back in then we can reinstall the Great wheel move over to the second wheel and lastly of course the Third Wheel so I am a firm believer to epom absolutely everything this is just the way that I was taught just makes absolutely everything so much easier there's the Escape wheel we're going to let that dry off then I can turn my attention over to this forgotten capule now I left this one inside of the train wheel Bridge so once again I'm going to recan everything then I can move my attention over to the capule itself clean that all for the piece of pegwood and reapply oil with my automatic Oiler so now we have the Escape wheel going back in and then we could reinstall the bridge finally check our free Spin and everything is moving perfectly now we're going to do some work on this winding bridge a brand new Crown wheel and Crown wheel cores going in as well as a brand new screw these ones were completely toast but these are fresh parts so we shouldn't have an issue and now we can move move over to the barrel Bridge so now this thing is slowly starting to come back to life as you guys can see here I'm oiling up this post for the next Crown wheel as well as the Yol this is going on for the sliding gear as long as this is done correctly you will always have a nice smooth winding operation I don't care what anybody says new click new spring once again more new screws I would say I replaced about 80% probably 90% of the screws and now we could check once again free Spin everything is moving flawlessly ratchet wheel sliding gear absolutely everything is perfect so now we reinstalled the pallet Fork pallet Fork bridge now we can hold power so I like to cycle through everything make sure everything is working the second wheel is moving and everything on the watch is just operating before I start applying oil and all of my hard work has now paid off I threw the balance back in with a new balance wheel itself and this thing is running flawlessly I mean this thing is perfect I couldn't have asked for a better turnout flipping back up to dial side so now we could start reinstalling all the motion Works they wheel mounted pretty much getting this thing ready to go so now I apply a very little amount of oil to the intermediate date corrector wheel as well as the actual date corrector itself don't want to over oil these parts they do move but they're not moving that much just to ensure everything is functioning properly so now we're moving along with everything here we're getting very close to being finished last part I want to put back on is the date indicator seating so I'm going to put this on get all the screws in and then we can check it a little bit more all right so we got that put down all the screws are back in now we could reinstall this calendar disc we just want to move the jumper and slide this under all the post of course once again checking functionality our quick set hack is working perfectly fine and now we're changing over the time and the date wheel mounted will flip the date wheel perfect can't believe it we're about ready to slap back on this dial and then we'll be good to go so now this is the new dial that we have I mean I love vintage stuff I love anything that looks like it has a ton of patina this has a nice cream Loom I mean the dial is just flawless I refer to this stuff as Stardust so we're going to reinstall the dial once again once this is put down we need to make sure that everything is working so this was in the client's budget so this is the dial that we went with now we could start reinstalling our hands and we are getting so close to being done sorry guys I tried to get the best angle of this once again I am still figuring it out so hopefully in the next one you guys have got a better more clear view all of our hands are on we're checking making sure that nothing is slamming into each other as well as we have a nice date change directly at 12:00 it's very important when setting hands you want to make sure that these these things are addressed and lastly our second T goes back on and this thing is running so happy with the outcome of this I mean nothing's budging into each other we're about ready to recase this watch so let's start rebuilding the case now here's the case fresh from ultrasonic client did not want to polish this watch he wanted to leave it fully intact with all of his original wear marks I had to clean a lot of this stuff by hand though removing all the rust from the threaded parts here's our old dial I'm going to throw this to the side and then we're going to start recasing this watch so now we got our Crystal on the case we could toss that right over the movement flip the whole thing upside down now we have the movement inside of the case and we could finally reinstall some of the screws for the main plate now these things were fully stripped out before luckily I was able to dissolve them put in brand new ones and now we can actually secure the movement into the case so now once again this thing isn't going to win any beauty pageant but the most important thing is that it's fully functional wasn't in the time I was on a time constraint so I couldn't really get these things replated so now we're moving over to the last part the automatic module once again epilim the world epilim all these parts the reversing wheels are going in now we can let these things dry off before we reassemble this automatic module once again a very fine amount of oil this is hp300 going right onto the pivots the base and the top just so as soon as I put these things back together there's some oil for these things to move around on so now I did actually have to replace the axle for the oscillating weight here it was just too far gone it was fully rusted so here I am once again hp300 just before reinstalling the bridge once we have this bridge set down we could put back on the pinion for the oscillating weight now we can put in our brand new spring clip this is what actually holds the rotor axle to the actual bridge then we can put on the brittle for the spring clip this is what secures everything all together brand new screw once again then we can tighten all this down and then we can move over to actually installing all these reversing Wheels once those are seated now we can put the driving wheel this is what actually turns the ratchet wheel it's got to go in between both of these they all have to intertwine all of the gears have to connect once that's done we toss back on the other side of the bridge and we could close this thing up last of the screws are in now we can tighten all these back down and then we are good to go once again checking functionality everything's moving freely now we can reinstall this back onto the movement this thing is so close to being done the last screws are being tightened don't forget check for functionality and put some hp300 on those pivots but rotor's in and we have it fully moving thing's moving perfectly fine perfectly freely I'm about ready to call it a day here brand new fresh gasket going in then we can put down the case back screw this all together now a lot of people don't realize this the crystal retaining ring actually has a separate o-ring so you want to make sure you reinstall that that O-ring is definitely vital we're going to reinstall the click spring there as well as this flat washer this slides underneath the spring so now these v- notches in the bezel you want to connect them right at the top of the click spring that's what allows the bezel to move around freely and give that nice clicking sound and just like that this watch is fully done everything is cased back up we have the bracelet reinstalled the only thing I wish is that I had a nice set of matching cream hands however the client wanted to keep the original ones so that's what we did I mean this dial looks phenomenal the entire watch is running perfectly I mean this thing looks killer now I hope the client gets to enjoy this for many years to come hopefully he doesn't have any more run-ins with water but for now we're going to call it a day this thing is running I'm going to observe it for a few days get it back onto the client's wrist hopefully he can enjoy it so guys don't forget like comment share and subscribe I can't thank you enough once again for tuning in stay tuned for next week's video it's going to be a great one happy holidays to all I'm wishing everyone the best enjoy the time with the family see you guys next week

Channel: Peter Piccolino

Views: 75,581

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Id: yADfKVX77_I

Length: 24min 43sec (1483 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023