Mike Szadaj
Well-Known Member
- Local time
- 9:28 AM
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2019
- Messages
- 988
- Reaction score
- 2,421
- Location
- St. Clair Shores, Mi
My car came with a Tic-Toc-Tach from the factory. The clock didn't work. I know most people don't notice or care if the clock in a car works or not, but I wanted mine to. I Heard about the quartz movement replacements, and figured that was the way to go. When doing the job, the entire original clock movement is replaced. After doing the swap, and putting power to the clock and seeing it work, I figured I would nose around the original. I had always assumed a car clock was like plug in the wall clock - that it used an electric motor. That was a stupid assumption because how is the motor in the clock going to run at a steady rate when the voltage supply is constantly fluctuating? The way the engineers solved that problem was to use an everyday run of the mill spring powered movement, only with a unique (at least in my mind) winder. In the first pic you can see the spring, (it is longitudinal - not circular) and in the foreground the winder. In the second photo I have marked the point attached to the winder "A", the point attached to the kicker "B", and the solenoid as "C". As the spring unwinds, point A moves toward point B. when they touch, (pic 3), they complete an electrical circuit that energizes the solenoid. When that happens the arm with point B is quickly jerked to the left, and that action kicks the winder to the left (pic 4), which puts tension on the spring again. Eventually, just like the points in a distributor, the points wear out. That is when these clocks stop running.
Some of you are aware that these clocks had a way to slow them down or speed them up. If you manually turn the clock ahead, that would speed the clock up a little, and vice-versa for adjusting the hands backwards. In the next 2 pics, you can see the speed adjuster moved from fastest to slowest. The gear on the right turns with the manual adjusting knob. Depending on which way you turn the knob, the gear moves that little "dogbone" which then moves the circular speed adjuster. There is slip between the gear and the dogbone so that each movement of the gear only moves the dogbone a tiny bit.
Cool stuff, if you ask me.
Some of you are aware that these clocks had a way to slow them down or speed them up. If you manually turn the clock ahead, that would speed the clock up a little, and vice-versa for adjusting the hands backwards. In the next 2 pics, you can see the speed adjuster moved from fastest to slowest. The gear on the right turns with the manual adjusting knob. Depending on which way you turn the knob, the gear moves that little "dogbone" which then moves the circular speed adjuster. There is slip between the gear and the dogbone so that each movement of the gear only moves the dogbone a tiny bit.
Cool stuff, if you ask me.