Linas from Belgium send me this Speedmaster, and, on first inspection, my heart did sink a bit.

The hands are either wrong or missing, the crystal and tachymetre ring aren’t original, and the watch isn’t working.

But the 145.037 is a very rare watch, and it will be worth putting in the extra effort to find parts and get this watch going again.

The sub hands and the central second hand aren’t original, and the hour and minute hands should be white.

The motley collection of hands.

The movement doesn’t look too bad.

The pusher gaskets have dissolved completely.

The pushers have large thread at the bottom, and the only explanation that I can come up with is that you could attach cables to them to remotely operate them. This could be used for test rigs where you have to time the length of events. The cables would look a bit like the ones used in the olden days for remotely operating camera shutters.

The tachymetre ring isn’t original, and somebody used all sorts of O-rings and a piece of cable to bodge the ring and crystal in.

Time to take the movement apart.

A bit of rust, but not too bad.

The chronograph is off, and I now can start on the base movement.

A bit of dirt on the crown wheel, but nothing too bad.

The gear train.

On the bottom plate, the fourth wheel arbor that drives the sub second hand is bent, and I will reshape that later.

This is what the crystal should look like – the tachymetre scale is printed onto the back side of the crystal. On the right, the new crystal gasket. Now I’m only waiting for the inner bezel ring, which is on back order.

The obligatory new mainspring.

I start off putting the base movement back together. The balance jewels are now in, and so is the plate that holds the lower barrel arbor.

Now I can put the gear train in. I have straightened the fourth wheel arbor.

The keyless works, which will enable me to wind the movement for testing.

The base movement is in, and I wind it up.

Now I can put the rest back together.

The bottom plate complete.

I clean, sand and re-paint the hands in white.

The new sub dial hands are a bit too small, and need broaching.

All hands back on, and looking so much better!

Now I can case the movement.

The watch looks great again, and, above all, original.

I believe Omega made less than a thousand of these!Another close look at the pushers.