Hi All,
I have worked on many watches over the last few years, mostly accutrons however in the past year or so I have become more interested in working on mechanical style wristwatches. Have recently repaired two different Omega Seamasters. This week I bought a Constellation online that was described as "will run and stop". I figured it had broken balance staff but bought it cheap enough to not be worried about that. It arrived running today and guy who sold it must have not known about automatic watches because it hasn't stopped yet. Runs dial up, down, as well as crown up or down. I have worn it keeping perfect time for the last 5 hours.
Issue is it has bad dial but it is in one of those cases that requires a split stem. Back comes off but stem still needs to be split to get movement out of case back. I have read many articles on removing this stem but have never done it myself. Saw one photo where a small pry bar type tool was used to remove crown. Read where someone said proper tool to use to remove this crown was hand remover and just pull straight away from case. Read another thread somewhere where person built tool to insert into opening between case and split stem. I have another dial I think will fit but have to get movement out of case first to be sure. The stem in my seamaster broke last week as I was setting it and I took it apart to get half stem out and put it back together, just don't want to have to do that again if I can avoid it. If anyone has experience with these stems I would appreciate the help.
Thanks