Service: IWC Aquatimer calibre C37524 / ETA2892

IMG_1423Josh wanted his Aquatimer serviced, and he said that there was water inside the watch. Now of all the watches in the world, an Aquatimer isn’t the one that you expect water to be inside – you just want it outside 😉 But there it is, and through the crystal, I can already see water.IMG_1426

And here is the culprit – Mr. “H04” and a case back gasket that wasn’t in place properly. That means the watch was put together without waterproof testing at the end. There is a lot of water on the case back, and I hope there isn’t too much damage.IMG_1427

Water everywhere…IMG_1429

The glue under the 12 o’clock markers has completely dissolved, and the markers just float off.IMG_1433

The auto winder gears have water in them as well.377-01

It’s been a while since the water has penetrated the case – there is already some rust building on the balance cock. If you ever flood a watch, it is essential to have it opened to dry it out as soon as possible. If you are on holidays, get somebody local just to open it up, and dry it out before you take it back home.IMG_1436

The movement is marked as C37524, but this is of course an ETA2892. There is a lot of marketing blurb around what IWC does with the movement, but I don’t think it’s put together by chanting Tibetan monks in Schaffhausen. My guess is that it’s a top grade ETA, shipped in a big container, already stamped as an IWC, with the rotor engraving, coming straight out of the ETA factory. I could be wrong, and the guys in Schaffhausen do all sorts of things with the movement before putting it together themselves, but I have my doubts. Why use a standard movement do do that? You might as well use one of your own, and IWC has no shortage of in-house movements. If IWC wants to invite me to Schaffhausen to prove me wrong, I’ll happily go there and report back what I have seen. 😉IMG_1441

The bottom plate looks very familiar as well.IMG_1446

All the parts go through the cleaning machine as usual.377-02Having dried the dial, you can see where the glue for the markers dissolved.IMG_1500

As usual, reassembly starts with a new mainspring.IMG_1501

Then I put the barrel bridge back together.IMG_1502

The base movement is back together and ticking. I have removed the rust on the balance cock before putting the parts into the cleaning machine.IMG_1504

Not bad for a first adjustment.IMG_1565

The movement is ready for the dial.IMG_1566

The dial and hands are on, and I’m ready for casing.IMG_1568

After casing, I put in the auto winder assembly, and then a new gasket with a bit of silicone grease. IMG_1569

An Aquatimer without the aqua – that’s better!

9 thoughts on “Service: IWC Aquatimer calibre C37524 / ETA2892

  1. Hi Christian.

    I feel I have to respond to your comments about the movement inside the above IWC and that you feel its is a standard ETA movement, albeit high quality. the A2 part of the name was in fact based on movement enhancements designed and made by IWC (specifically with Richard Habring then of IWC as part of the team) some 20 years ago? I have ETA movements in two of my watches, one of which is an IWC XVI. They are both serviced regularly and I can confirm that whilst my IWC ‘s accuracy is +3 seconds a week, my other top quality watch with an2892/A2 is 3 seconds a day. Admittedly both very good, but the IWC is spectacular and always + fast. I have owned three IWC’s over the years and there is simply nothing, (from a lay person and owner point of you) that comes close for accuracy IMHO. I am not a person who is impressed by the Rolex or any of the other names that have apparent ‘wrist presence’, I am only interested in form following function and accuracy. In this respect I am pretty well convinced that whatever IWC do or instruct others to do to the movements has a huge effect on running and accuracy. I sent an email to the ‘Uk Concierge for IWC a few weeks ago and posed the question regarding the movements. They reiterated their complete ‘rebuilding and modifying’ of the movements. I also noted an article from ‘Uherenjournal’ you may be interested in http://www.iwcforum.com/Uhrenjournal.html You have beautifully serviced many of my watches Christian and I bow to your superb engineering knowledge on all things horological but my personal experience of my IWC’s is that nothing even come close for accuracy and reliability. My XVI is almost ‘quartz like’ in its accuracy and is my daily wearer. there is deffinately some ‘hocus -pocus’ or ‘magic dust’ been thrown around at IWC.

  2. Hi Christian, speaking about that rusted balance cock did you disassemble it completely before you soaked it in acid?

    • No, I didn’t. I took the jewels out, of course. I charged £120 for the whole work, so there have to be limits. There are no functional implications, as you can see from the amplitude afterwards.

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  4. Eeeek. Water is bad 🙁

    Pretty much wherever you are in the world you are likely to be able to buy a a bag of dried rice… and dried rice is great for sucking moisture out of things, though that was quite an amount of moisture!

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