**** Stripping's and re-building a 6497/8 ****

[is that my watch]

well I have two faulty full metal 6497 movements one partly strip down one full movement. I'm going to swap over base plate and rebuild to see if it fixes the issue been having with the one the others a donor so does have some missing parts but should be able to build one out the two.

Stage One.



Make sure the watch is unwound first you can do this if charge by wind the stem and you will see the ratchet release,their is a little hole in the ratchet if you put the tweeze in their. it holds the ratchet clear of the winding cog. then let it slowly unwind in your fingers. we do this because if fully wound and you remove the tense by removing the barrel plate or centre plate then it snap's unwound which can cause damage to the movement .

Depend what it is you need to do, will make you strip the movement in different ways and how completely . you need to break it down, in this instance as a full strip down then going barrel way first . but you can just do certain parts if needed ( hair spring replace, barrel replace etc etc )

Stage two.

Now I remove the screw and cog for the barrel ,then the two screw's the blue ones holding the plate in place, now lift off plate. You will see the barrel cog which just lift out. you will also see the stem cogs I leave the stem in but the clamp loose so you can lift them off in a set.




I remove the three screws holding the middle plate in place. exposing the cogs the middle cog will stay in place as fixed through the plate. I remove the others ( side note will do a thread on removing just the centre plate to gain access to the sub-seconds cog )



It's good to have pics or refence of which order or way up they go. I hit a snag here and might answer why the movement had a issue the sub-seconds cog should just lift out .but not wanting to .( on doing the other thread first on modifying a movement I said it looks like it had been sanded so think it bent the pin ) which did meationed in the other thread could happen if you did this. will leave in place till I strip down the pin and pallet which normal I would leave alone unless a fault very small and trick part is the pin and pallet plate .



Going to remove the hair spring next . remove the one screw and lift up and away at a slightly angle. now normal would not bother moving the pin and pallet plate (as I said above but need it out the way to see why the sub cog is not coming out easy) but it removes by one screw and lifts off . as you see the sub cog came out easy now.you could remove the pin and pallet by those two blue screws but don't see a need . think on a proper panerai you would need to do this to remove the sub cog anyway so might be good to see .



That's stripping down the 6497 movement.

so on rebuilding it

Stage three .

Well you simple go in reverse just making sure the cogs are in the their jewels both top and bottom you tend to feel it when right. when you come to the barrel cog you want to loosely screw it on first (just enough to hold it on then move the ratchet cog out your way and push the cog down and twist slightly it you should feel it pop in place as the teeth catch each other. then let the ratchet go it should if you are holding the cog down snap in place then tighten the screw the rest of the way.



Hope that may help you trouble spot your movement.


As always ismy