Maybe this is the most useless “do it yourself” article ever. Why? Because there are only two more guys I know about that have a Citizen Chronomaster 500m. (Hello Howard and Jose! 🙂 )  There are only 15 watches I found online in all my years of being borderline obsessed with them. I have two and the exact one in this article is available for sale at this very moment.

Anyway, let’s dive right into it!

Let’s pretend you have the watch (congratulation if you do!) and without going to the watchmaker, because you get bored on your Christmas / New Year vacation, you decide you have nothing else better to do than spending your time removing the movement of the most rare and expensive Vintage Citizen Watch ever.

First thing you have to do is have the watch in your hand, remove the strap / bracelet /nato… and look for the right instruments. A watchmaker knife, some tweezers  and a small screw driver, a suction cup and a loupe would be great. As you already know this is a unibody case, so the case back doesn’t come of. This is to further ensure the 500m, eliminating a weak link (the case back).

Use the knife to (carefully) force the bezel out. Just stick it under it (I use a small cotton fabric to wrap around the blade so I can protect the watch from scratches) and put a little force using the lug as a lever. It will pop right out. Be careful not to lose the small metal spring that is located in a small space and inserted in a hole at 4 o clock under the bezel. It is there so that we can have the unidirectional 60 clicks action of the diving bezel. Then remove the tension ring that holds the crystal, using the same knife. No fabric this time because there is no space. Take your time, it is not difficult at all.

Because you already have the suction cup, just use it to lift the crystal. Something sticky will do the same thing. Now use the magnifier and the tweezers or / and the small screwdriver to remove the dial bezel ring and the rubber seal that is under the crystal. Good! Now unscrew the crown, turn the watch face down and rotate the crown…. the movement will fall! Be careful on what it falls onto and do not touch the dial or bend the hands. If you want to make sure this doesn’t happen you should remove the hands before turning the watch dial side down. (that is for a different article).

Congratulation! You did it!

Now, put it back together! LOL!

Read more about this awesome watch HERE.