Hey all the clock in my '72 Supreme suddenly stopped working. As of this past Saturday it was fine, but today, no tick tock.

It's a refurbished OEM that I installed last month. i have 12V to the power wire, so I'm thinking (but don't wanna accept it) that it's internal, unless there's a way to "kick start" it.

Any info would be appreciated 😀

 

It'll involve taking the clock apart. Usually when one of these quits either the trigger points are stuck/burned/dirty or the winding solenoid has failed. Possibly a broken wire between the terminal plug and the solenoid.

Open the clock and look at the movement. You can pull the winder away from the points to check and clean them. They look much like ignition points.

If you have a steady hand, use a toothpick to put a tiny drop of light machine oil on each gear in the clock movement. Then use the setting stem to run the hands thru a couple of full rotations to distribute the oil.

Use a couple of jumper wires to connect the clock straight to the battery + and - . If the clock winds down and kicks the winder away from the points, clock ought to work. If not, look into a quartz movement conversion.

 

​​​​​​Thanks for the help...hooking it directly to a battery was my next thought, but is that before or after I re oil it?

 

^^^ This. I would be very very hesitant to start oiling the mechanism.

 

That's why I said steady hand, tiny drop, L I G H T machine oil. 10W or thinner viscosity. I use Hammond organ tonewheel oil on me clocks because it doesn't gum up like say 3 in 1.

 

I would use Mineral Oil.

 

I'd agree it's the points. Honestly? I'd just convert it to quartz and be done with it forever. Your clock is as easy as they get to convert. You can do it yourself w/o any special tools. If you buy a kit off ebay it comes with an installation video. All my clocks have been converted to quartz, my 442 clock was done about 20 years ago. I've never had problems with any of them. You've got to move with the times!

 

If It's a refurbished OEM that you installed last month, get hold of them and send it back. I used red line gauge and clock repair. Reasonable and fast turn around. 731 571 0766 Good luck

Cedar MI 48738

 

The thing with a refurbished clock is, they most likely did what the people here are telling you to do. File the points and lube. Back in the late 60's that's what I would do. I thought I was a magician! I'd fix them and they would run, sometimes several years. If you look hard in the old manuals, you learn that's what you were supposed to do, service them. The cars then only had 10 year lives, maybe. I fixed many over the years and they worked fine. As time passed I learned more. When the quartz kits came out, I had one done in my GTO. I thought wow, this is great! When I bought my 442, I wanted to do it myself, but there were no good kits then and I was twitchy because it is a rally pac deal. I sent it out. The next car I bought I did the quartz myself. And...I learned something. Even though I had fixed maybe 10-15 of them, there was one thing that always drove me crazy. That is DST when you have to move the hands 12 hours. All of the clocks were very hard to turn the small **** to adjust them. You would turn it, it would only move maybe 20 minutes. It took a lot of effort to move it 12 hours. My fingertips would hurt doing it. The kit I did after the 442 had a video. In the video they talked about these plastic or rubber washer things on the adjusting mechanism. It's 2 or 3 plastic washer things that are stacked. They said they always get gummed up, that you take a Q-tip and clean between them. I did that, put the quartz movement in, put it together. Wow...what a difference that made adjusting the lock! It was like the Wheel of Fortune after that, it was effortless to spin the hands rapidly. To really refurbish the clock it should get new points. There are 3 things that make that clock a really good one for a beginner. It comes out easily, it comes apart easily, and it's big. A 70 Z28 clock is like an inch and a 1/2 big. My 67 GS clock face is small and is riveted on with these tiny rivets. I might have info in my files here. I'll check.

 

These are the kits I use. Go to 10 mins in and watch 2-4 minutes of the video. That's what I was talking about cleaning and lubing. That's the stuff that's related to the manual adjusting ****. Nobody does it (maybe pros), it makes a huge difference.
https://www.clocksandgauges.com/quar...rsion-kit.html

 

I'm in correspondence with the seller...he's going to replace my clock 😀

 

Good deal!

 

That's great news! I guess for future reference, if you find yourself wanting some excellent extremely low viscosity oil(s) to lubricate a watch, clock & other delicate pieces you should consider Moebius 8000. I have a small 5mL container for really lightweight stuff like tiny gears (think clocks & watches). I'll bet it's nearly the same as what I've used almost forever whenever I needed a lightweight lubricating oil & that is Hoppes Gun lubricating oil which I've always found works extremely well.

 

Got my replacement clock today and planning in installing it tomorrow. Are there any suggestions as to what I can do to keep this one ticking? (In laymen's terms)😀

 

do the quartz movement swap !!!

 

Nope, they are what they are. Sooner or later it will stop again. Then it will become accurate exactly 2x a day.

 

Got my clock installed today and all is good, but I discovered something in the process...

When I hooked up the power wire, the clock didn't work, but as soon as I hooked up the bulb harness and plugged the bulbs into the clock, it started working, even though it wasn't installed yet. (So, does the clock use the bulb sockets for a ground)?

I also noticed that when I removed the other clock, the power wire for the bulb harness wasn't hooked up securely (someone just it pushed into the socket for the under dash lights.) It came out when I unhooked the bulb harness, so when I put the clock in today, I made sure the power wire for the bulb harness was done right.

So is it possible that the reason the other clock stopped working was because of the bad connection for power wire for the bulb harness, thereby causing a bad ground?

(Here's a rough sketch of what I'm talking about)

 

Sorry Norm...I'm not "schematic savvy"...I made another drawing 😀

 

Thanks for the input Norm. So if I understand correctly, (and to summarize), the clock light sockets have to be snapped into the back of the clock to complete the circuit for the clock to work, is that right?

 

As Norm showed above, the metal ground strap must be connected to complete the electrical circuit. Since you powered the clock without it being screwed into the dash, there was no ground, so the clock did not work. Then when you connected the lamps, those provided a path to ground (a lamp is just a small coil of wire that gets hot from the current flowing through it), and with the lamp wires providing a ground path, the clock began working.

 

Yup Norm...I have both feeds.

 

You sir, are correct. The clock was in my hand. When I hooked up the power wire, the clock didn't work (which I expected because it didn't have a path to ground.). Yet, as soon as I snapped in the bulb sockets, the clock began working (while it was still in my hand).

 

Thanks for the input Kenneth. So, the million dollar question...is this how it's supposed to work, or do I have a short to ground somewhere?

 

The clock is getting its ground thru the dash lamps. It doesn’t take much current to get the clock to function (if it did the battery would go dead in a couple days) so a less than ideal ground path is enough to get the clock started.

 

Understood Matt and thx for the input 👍. So even though ideally the clock should get its ground from the dash, is there anything wrong with it getting ground from the bulb sockets?

 

When you turn on the dash lights, the dash lamp won’t provide the ground anymore. You will have power thru the orange wire, power from the dash lamps, 2 power sources without a ground won’t run the clock, the dash lamps won’t work without a ground.

Once the gauge is bolted in place, it should ground to the dash. If for some strange reason it won’t, add a small jumper wire from a mounting screw to a solid metal surface behind the dash. Problem solved.

 

Did a quick check this morning...
Lights off: clock works
Lights on: clock works and clock bulbs work

 

The clock lights work with the clock in your hand, not in the dash? How can they work with no ground?????

 

The clock lights work with the clock in your hand, not in the dash? How can they work with no ground?????

 

Nooo...lol. I installed the clock Tuesday, and this morning I did the test you described above with the clock installed.