Hey Fellas,
After doing an absolute ton of research and as much reading as i can into the 6309 and 7546/8 quartz conversion my project has finally begun.
After finding out a week ago that my watchmaker has had a stash of old Seiko's for years.. i delved into his box of watches and found a 6309, 6306, 7548 and a MINT 6105. I tried to buy the 6105 for a future restoration (movement only as everything else is amazing) but alas he currently wants to keep that one.
Nevertheless, we had talked last Monday morning about doing a quartz conversion to one of the other two cases with the 7548 he had. I went in this morning and we finally made a collection of parts. So this is what we've got to play with so far..
A MINT June, 1977 6309 case, with perfect crown tube and a really nice, hardly worn original insert.
The hands from the 6309 with an amazing original lume that has turned a lovely cream colour.
The 7548 dial, also with an amazing cream colour to it.
The 7548 date, and (i don't know if this is rare or not..) the Kanji day wheel.
The 6306 also had the Kanji day wheel but when we lifted the dial off the 7548 we found it too had one, so we just took that instead so we didn't have to open up the 6306.
He has NOS Seiko gaskets for the crown, case back, bezel and one for the crystal that we are going to install in this so it'll end up being completely water proof as well.
As you can tell, i'm seriously stoked on this. So far, he's going to charge me $50 for the collection of parts i have. If i can win a 7546 watch tomorrow it'll hopefully be around $15 for the donor movement, and then his time to clean the case and reassemble everything and the cost of gaskets. So hopefully won't add up to much more than $100 or so for his time to put it all together.
Here's a picture so far of the parts i've got to play with.