1976 Razorback Viscount Disassembly

Arkmd78 · January 15

Greetings to all. Attached are some photos of a recent eBay acquisition. A 1976 Timex Viscount with character dial and M31 automatic movement. The watch is in working condition and seems to keep fairly accurate time. I wish to perform a thorough cleaning of the case/crystal, and do some scratch removal of the original acrylic crystal. Any suggestions regarding cleaning/lubrication of movement are welcome as well.

My first task is removal of movement and dial from case so I can thoroughly clean case and polish crystal (as seen in photos, I have already removed the crown/stem without issue). My first newbie question is procedure for removing the movement and dial. The movement seems to be retained by some sort of metal ring that overlaps the back of the movement in two locations. I fiddled with this metal band, but could not see any easy way to release this. Is it possible that the dial/movement is meant to be removed from the front by removing the crystal (with the claw type crystal tool)?

Arkmd78 · January 25

Was able to get well on my way into disassembly of this 1976 Viscount automatic. I learned that the metal retention collar can be teased out fairly easily with a small screwdriver gently prying on one of the open ends, causing it to pop out of it’s groove for about half it’s circumference. The rest comes out easily, and the dial/movement assembly drops out freely after removal of crown/stem.
I was able to remove the crystal with a relatively inexpensive crystal lift, without damage ( a bit unnerving as was the first time using one of these). I plan to carefully do some manual polishing of the chrome plated case with “Flitz”, unless someone on this forum advises me that this is a bad idea. I also plan to manually work on removing the superficial scratches of the crystal using my Novus Plastic Polish for fine scratches. May use Polywatch as a final treatment.

As for cleaning and lubricating the movement, I would like to do what’s required with as little disassembly of movement as possible. Removing rotor seems pretty easy, but am a little wary of messing with the balance, given my level of experience.