I'm not really a movement freak but I've always had a soft spot for the Valjoux 7740. It was used time during the early 70's mainly in Breitlings.
I like it because it has the running seconds at 6 and the chrono sub dials at 3 and 9, allowing for a more balanced dial IMO.
I've got a long running project that will utilise this movement and have picked up a couple of Breitling Transoceans over the last couple of years. One for a donor movement and one for a wearable spares source:
My favourite watch that carries this movement is the Excelsior Park Monte Carlo. It's not a common watch and although I kept a loose eye on eBay and such, nothing worth having popped up.
However, an idle trawl through Google images one day lead me a post on here where Sweets posted and image of his (all roads lead to TZ it seems!). A chance PM to Dave resulted in it winging its way to me.
So far, so good. However, once it arrived I opened the package to find thanks to the careful handling by the Postie, the hour hand had snapped :(
Dave then turned from TZer to superstar, firstly offering an immediate refund, which I declined, then taking the watch back and sorting the hand off his own back. A mention of thanks should also go to Minkle at this point.
After a load of hassle for Dave, after it transpired the old hand couldn't be salvaged, he actually got a small batch of hands made. The whole thing was sent to Duncan and it was sent back to me yesterday.
Nice to finally have it on the wrist!
(Excuse the mess in the background - about 20 minutes after I tidied up grrr)
And a massive thank you once again to Dave - Sweets. One of the forum heroes for sure!
Lovely watches. IIRC the Valjoux 7740 is a modular, rather than an integrated movement, which might be worth considering at service time. My favourite watch with this movement is the Sinn 903. Most vintage 903 had a Lemania movement, but there was a rare version with a Valjoux 7740.
You're right, it is modular. It's basically a Cal. 12 with the chrono module rotated 180 degrees.
It also loses the automatic rotor in favour of a running seconds.
There was also a super rare 7741 that lost the seconds and gained a GMT hand.
Hi there
Thanks for the kind words Dave, most appreciated.
I had to help out, I couldn't just let a broken watch arrive, and sit and do nothing could I?
Mike (Minkle) was also heroic in terms of trying to re-solder the split hand (broken somewhow on the pinion end of the lume section). Which unfortunately did not work.
I was intending to do a post about this myself, as I learnt something new.
And that is how advanced laser cutting has become.
It was clear very early that an NOS part might turn up in 20 years, but we would probably miss it even then, so we were going to have to re-manufacture something to replace the broken original.
This is not a hand pattern I have seen anywhere else, so not something in stock anywhere either.
Hands are stamped (usually), but that means manufacturing a die to stamp with, which is expensive. Very expensive.
Cutting one out seemed the only option, even if it means there is no tube at the pinion end. We would have to rely on a good fit.
Look at the below
The old, failed hand on the left, and the batch of 5 (they made 6 actually) replacements, so that we could afford a failure or two in polishing/fitting.
Bear in mind that the metal edges of these hands are 0.2mm wide, and the stainless is 0.2mm thick as well. The level of precision is amazing, as is the absence of large radii on the internal corners of the lume window or machining distortion. I think it is quite extraordinary, and really opens up the field to custom work or vintage parts replacement work.
Thought this might interest a few here
Dave
ps - the 7740 uses the same chronograph module as the Cal 12, but on top of it sits a totally different base movement. the Cal 12 uses a micro-rotor auto movement as the drive train, this 7740 uses a faster beat manual one with sub-seconds (at 6). That is why the sub-seconf pinion is so much closer to the central pinion.
It is also worth noting that the Excelsior Park uses sterilised movements, with the name machined off the back. It is widely thought these were bought from Breitling's liquidation sale for use in this watch.
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