I opened up this Timex Expedition T42351 to remove a tiny loose metal sliver from the dial. This watch actually has 2 stems to remove. One of those is a monster. I swear I felt like I was pulling a parasitic worm from a wood boring beetle as I slowly worked the main stem out of the movement.
But it came out, I dropped the movement out of the case, removed the metal sliver – which looks like some kind of tiny flat spring – cleaned out the dust particles and proceeded to re-assemble the watch.
Everything went fine until I attempted to slide the main stem back in; it went about halfway and then stopped. With some very careful manipulation I was able to ease it in a little more, but then it refused to go any further.
I did notice there’s a very loose 2-pronged spring near the entry hole and showed that to a watchmaker friend yesterday who told me that it’s broken. He wouldn’t touch it and advised me to just go get another watch. But I’m pretty sure there must be a way to get the stem back into the movement and regain the functionality the watch had before I opened it up.
Trying to attach pics but keep getting a “500 Internal Server Error – nginx” error message. I’ll try again in a bit.
