justacog

A bit of a side project. The clock in my 54 Olds Super 88 probably hasn't run in over 30 years. I decided to pop it out to send to someone who restores these old car clocks. While there are a LOT of people listing their car clock restoration skills, they are like unicorns to get a call back or get on their schedule.

That being said I figured, what the heck, and looked through some YouTube videos showing how these style clocks work. I separated the casing successfully (hardest part was undoing the 4 crimps around the face of the bezel). After mucking with the balance wheel for about an hour (just manually trying to get it started), darned if it didn't start running constantly. I was manually "winding" it during that time. I then looked at the "points" and they looked pretty good. In fact, this Westclox design has an extremely hardy winding system that seems less prone to points failure and has a double electromagnet that balances the winder.

Anyway, I checked both electro-magnet coils and got 3 ohm reading on both and 6 ohm in series. I hooked up my 12V source and it began to auto-wind perfectly. It's got a winding cycle of about a 3' 30" which is about twice what cheaper automotive clocks would normally do (at least from what I read), so that alone would add a lot more usable life to these clocks over time.

I'm going to still do some cleaning and oiling before declaring victory. I'm using QD Electrical Cleaner (seems better than Brake Cleaner that I see recommended by some since Electrical Cleaner is safe on plastics which there might be on the back face of the clock. I'll blow off each spritz of cleaner with canned air, focusing on the pivot points and a few gears that look like they have some black junk on them (probably some carbon produced from the points over the years). I've ordered up the recommended clock oil (Horace Whitlock's 100% Synthetic Clock Oil) and some oiling "pins", to apply before retesting and reassembly. The good news is that I let the clock run for about 18 hours with no noticeable inaccuracy of time (I assumed someone had "adjusted" it for correctness when it was working). With some cleaning and oiling, I have even higher hopes for this running accurately for years to come.

Just thought I'd share this in case anyone is interested in getting their clock up and running. No too difficult a project, as long as the innards are in good shape.

ub2693v

That's awesome, I had my clock out just last week while I was working on my radio, the contact points were very dirty, i did get it to work after cleaning the points, worked great for a few hours on the bench, put it back in the car and it stopped working, looks like I'll have to clean it a little better and get the clock oil. The 55 clock has a single electro magnet, I would think the dual is much better. I did get the radio working though, new tubes, 0Z4 rectifier and the light bulb method to bring the vibrator back to life.

justacog

So I've finished servicing the clock on and everything seems to be working perfectly.

It seems that there were two suppliers of clocks for these GM cars. One from Westclox (light bulb mounts from the back) and one from Borg Warner (light bulb mounts from the side). I've got the Westclox. It has 2 electromagnet coils. If functional, each will measure about 3 ohms and together will measure 6 ohms (they are wired in series). I used QD Electronic Cleaner from NAPA (WAY safer on any plastic bits) with the directional tube on it to only concentrate the cleaner solvent only on the pivots and gears that are gunked with old oil or whatever. Don't spray anything on or towards the hair spring. I immediately used canned air with a direction nozzle to blow off the solvent before it evaporates to help blow out any loosened grime (again, don't blow on the hairspring...you can damage that easily). The clock might struggle to work at this point (if it was working before) since most/all old lubricant has been removed. I followed up with Horace Whitlock's Synthetic Clock Oil (you can find it on Amazon, with two "needle/pin" applicators). You just dip the pin into the oil and touch the pin to the hole on the outside of the plates where each pivot pin rotates. The pin will look dry, but there is oil on it and it you hold it vertical, you can see the oil start to form into a drop on the tip. LESS IS MORE. If there are some pivot holes you can't get to from the outside, apply to the inside of the pivot but be careful to not get ANY oil on anything but the pivot holes. Don't get any on the gears and DONT GET ANY on the hairspring (that will change the timing of the clock as dust accumulates on that spring from the oil. There should be a pivot or two on the winding mechanism, including a small "spring release" system designed to snap the points together quickly just before the clock mechanism would have slowly bring them together (which would cause arcing/carbon on the points).

To polish/clean the points, I superglued a little square of 600 grit emory cloth to a small wooden shish kabob skewer to reach in there and clean those up.

Once hooked back up to a 12V source (I've got a variable DC power supply, but most folks can just use a spare car battery), you might find that the clock doesn't want to run. You'll need to gently push the balance wheel to get it going several times (it took about 15 minutes of doing this on mine) to help that new oil work itself into the pivot holes. If all is well, it should take off and keep running. I'd let it run for a least a day, before reassembling. You'll want to watch that balance wheel to make sure it looks like it goes back and forth at a steady rate. I could tell on mine that (before doing all the above) that the balance wheel and clock were running as if operational, but I could definitely tell that the balance wheel was slowing down slightly and then would speed back up. If it does that, after all the above, you've got more work to do (either things didn't get fully cleaned or oiled properly).

On reinstalling back in the car, I saw a lot of other forum posts regarding this topic (not just this site) recommending that you install a small inline fuse for the clock power. The logic is that when the car battery gets really low the electromagnet can't wind the clock and the points end up sitting against each other with low voltage going across 6 ohms of coils, causing the points to burn up/carbon up. A low amp fuse could prevent this situation from happening. I'm not sure I'll do that...but I will think about it.

Hope this helps someone else! My clock is running like new! I know a clockmaker could do a better job and things I just can't do (like polishing the balance wheel points), but I'm pretty comfortable with the results I got (so far). Here's the stuff I used. Get a really good magnifying glass and bright flashlight so you can REALLY inspect everything closely for cleanliness and for placing the oil with those pins.

Cleaning your clock ;-)

ub2693v

Excellent write up!!

I'm happy to say that my clock has been running on the bench for 14 hours now, it is a little on the fast side, its gained about ten minutes so I'll have to adjust it. A tiny drop of oil on the pivot points makes all the difference!!