This SKX171 from the year 2000 belongs to John who is an avid Seiko modding fan. He wore it daily for many years and despite what its condition might suggest, he does treasure it. Unfortunately John suffered a stroke which left him without speech. He was able to communicate through his lovely wife what he wanted done with the watch. With my brief I set off to restore this treasured Seiko for John to enjoy once more.
The dial had some stains on the front but they weren’t too bad. A post was missing however so I made sure to use dial dots to secure it in place. There was also some damage to the chapter ring and while we could have tried to source an original looking one, John was happy with an SRPD equivalent. There were signs here and there that the watch had been worked on over its 20 year life.
If you haven’t worked on the earlier 7S movements, you just might be surprised by a small phillips screw. All screws are small on these movements but this one is tiny and you can’t use a flathead screwdriver to undo it. I used the cheap method of filing the smallest flathead screwdriver I had into an almost pointy tip to be able to unscrew it. I filed this screwdriver back in 2011 and it is still serving me well.
The most time consuming part of this build was sourcing the correct date wheel and transferring the calendar wheels to the NH36. The SKX171 comes with a 7S26A movement and when you transfer the calendar wheels to a 7S26C, or an NH36 or 4R36 movements, the alignment is little bit off. The correct part number for the date wheel in black is 0878 207.
Just a tiny variance between old and new movements…
With that out of the way it was a matter of casing up this well loved watch, throwing on a Strapcode Oyster with a ratchet buckle, and returning it to John to enjoy.
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This is a big shout out to (Seiko) George who transformed my stock SKX to a Hulk lookalike, post some pics George, it’s stunning!
