1977 280z clock issue #xx of yy

[240zadmire]

Hi all,

The original clock is dead.  I found instructions on this forum how to rebuild the clock.  I happened to have 2 capacitors but don't have the smallest one.  I believe 0.22uf.  However, the instruction seem to suggest to replace the transistor as well.  I don't have it yet.

long story short, I able to get it run/spring when put face down.  But orient position correctly, seem like it is too weak to oscillate.  Learn that the Quartz version is more reliable than this one.  Went ahead and get one for $5 knowing it is not working.

Search online many hours and doesn't seem like anyone rebuilt it accept send it in to a shop or zclocks.  Wonder why!!!!  The mechanical seems simpler than the pure analog.  Pardon my limited electrical knowledge but there seem to be few things can be replace on the quartz clock.  The white flat cylindrical look, I think it call quartz oscillator.  Wonder what is the value for that? is it 7 MHz? what voltage, capacitance? the other black rectangle is the Integrated Chip I believe.  few other components look like diode, resistor.  I don't know their values either.

Has anyone rebuild this? or have good instructions on how to go about it?  Seem like digikey.com and mouser.com sell a lot of component.  Just need the values and hopefully they carry those component.

I'm a tinkering kind of guys.  want to try to see if  I can rebuild it.

Much appreciated

 

regards

 

[zclocks]

Your are talking about two different clocks. 

Before you replace any components you need to test the coils or you are wasting your time replacing components. With the circuit board installed power up the clock and watch the moving magnets on the clock wheel, it should move ever so slightly. This indicates the coils are good. If no movement then one or both coils are bad.

The OEM clock  components should be replaced with the exact component values or you will change the clock timing. Soldering around the coil wires is very tricky and I mean VERY tricky. You can destroy either coil by over heating.The wires are 2mm, coated and don't like to be re-soldered. Replace all the caps and the transistor. 

The second clock which you described is a kanto Seiki quartz. I have never seen an electrical component go bad on this mechanism, it's usually mechanical. The plastic gears have stripped teeth, worn nylon or the toroid magnet is broken or damaged. The nylon gears and  toroid are not available. I have a mold and make my own gears and NO I do not sell the gears.

Stripped gears are not the root cause, but the effect of the problem. Replacing  gears is not the answer.

Hope this helps

 

[240zadmire]

Hi @zclocks

thanks for the info.  Yes, the coil wires on the original clock are like hair width.  So tiny I thought initially was dust or something.  I did hook it up and seem like it tried to move but couldn’t.  Figure capacitors should dried up after 43 years.  I had a few capacitors on my other projects.  Though the capacitance are the same, the voltage is 25volts I think.  Replace it and see what happens and it did turn smoothly.  But only face down as I believe the magnetic bars are heavy and it doesn’t have enough power lifting up, if standing up right.

 

about the quartz, the teeth were very “scorched” sound when trying to adjust.  Common sense so I thought, put some sewing general purpose oil to lube the gears. It helps until I read your other threads that denatured alcohol is the only thing needed to clean the gears.  So much for common sense eh.  For consolation prize, I didn’t put wd40 or worse engine oil or grease ? 

 

i have not open it yet.  There are so many gears so tiny and I don’t have proper tools.

this will be another great experience that I want to learn.  Glad to hear mechanical is the only issue I should tend to, though daunting task nevertheless.

my toolsets are heavy duty like hammer, torch ... compare to delicate tool for the watch.  At the end of this experience, whether I get it working or not, I’ll learn how to be patience and detail. Worth the efforts.  Any pointer you can give is greatly appreciate

 

regards

 

[zclocks]

Don't use oil. It will not help and only cause problems. This is not a grandfather clock which needs TLC and oil yearly.

[240zadmire]

Hello all,

I took a stab at a seized quartz clock.

disclaimer: my first rebuild clock ever.  Follow at your own risks.

tools:

- plier, smallest possible

- white towers, a few sheets

- q-tips, a handful

- plastic toothpick with floss string. Put one in your mouth right now.  You’ll need it later

- screw driver

- wire cutter 

- rubbing alcohol 

- 3 credit cards or o’reilly reward card 

- soldering iron

- 5m wrench

- punch tool for resizing your 18th birthday that your rich grand daddy gave you.  It will be come useful later

 

unscrew to get the main housing out. Push  the black and blue wires in to make room.  Use a bit of force to pry out as there is a rubber seal and stick firm together as it is 40+ years.  Once remove, you’ll see black and blue wires soldered to the pin. Unsolder then and remove excessive soldering. Use 5mm wrench to remove 2 nuts and gently pull the  white housing of the clock out. Take pictures, observe everything.  Handle with care and wear gloves just coincident, I’m out of gloves ?

unsolder the 2 pins that hold the coil and the circuit board should be remove easily.  Set it aside. Observe and take pictures.

Unscrew the 3 screw and a gear might fly off. Remember to take picture. 
remember the toothpick in your mouth? It is now come in handy.  Bite down on it to control your strength and give you focus.  You’ll have to remove the hour and minute hands to get the remaining gears out.

 

Remove the clock hands is not the same as remove the spindle pins on the rear suspension.  Don’t go to town with it.  Use the punch that use to resize your 18th birthday Rolex.  Make sure the pin SMALLER than the hole otherwise you’ll damage the hole.  See photo.  Bite down the toothpick and give it a gent tab.  Hold the clock on the side, not the face.

the minute hand should pop out.  If the punch key is too short, get a smallest cotter pin or similar and try to push it out. 
 

the hour hand is a bit tricky as you have to pull it out from the clock face.  Get 3 credit cards or the like.  Stack up and use a flat screw driver to pry it out.  Be gentle don’t bend or scratch the paint.  It’s going to be tough to touch up ?

 

after that, remove the 3 screws from the body and remaining gears should fall out.  Again, be-sure to take photos along the way.  You’ll need it to put back together.

use denatured alcohol to clean gears.  Use q tip and toothpick for the gear teeth.

 

once done, reverse the order.

 

one thing I made a mistake and gave me a hell of a time to put back in.  I think it will be easier to put all the gears back in first before putting the hour and minutes. I fiddled awhile to align the hands.  I think it should be 12 o’clock for ease of adjustment.  I think at least I misalign a tooth or 2 as it is true 12. 
 

while I was at it, I replace the capacitor with same value.  The new one is smaller physically than the original one.  The Z need or the weight los possible.  Perhaps even give it a boost in power due to the lighter clock.

thats how I did it. I don’t know if it is the right way to do it.  It seem to work and will let it run over night to see what happen.  I do not have the equipment to see if replaced the capacitor make any difference.

 

regards

 

-

 

 

 

 

[Captain Obvious]

5 hours ago, 240zadmire said:

while I was at it, I replace the capacitor with same value.  The new one is smaller physically than the original one.  The Z need or the weight los possible.  Perhaps even give it a boost in power due to the lighter clock.

thats how I did it. I don’t know if it is the right way to do it.  It seem to work and will let it run over night to see what happen.  I do not have the equipment to see if replaced the capacitor make any difference.

That capacitor is just used as a filter for a local derived power supply to drive the clock. The diode and resistor are a simple voltage regulator to knock the battery voltage down to a lower level. And the cap is there to make sure the clock circuitry has a nice clean voltage from which to operate. It would be very unlikely for it to affect the operation of the clock, especially on the bench. Enjoy the extra horsepower. Haha!

You talk like you don't know what you're doing most of the time, but I think, in reality you got skills.        Well done!

[240zadmire]

Hi @Captain Obvious

my greatest strength/asset is willing to try anything.  I observe.  When I set my mind to do something, I’m over obsess and it drives me my t sometime.  If I can watch people doing things, I can pickup a lot of stuff.  If I see people do things, even though I’m not 100% sure of it, I’d try it anyway.  Did you know that never in my life  welding? Because of this car, now I know the basic of MIG welding.  It’s ugly and I have to put extra work on the grind it down afterward. But I know something now and not afraid of it.  Oh, and I ran 220v for the welder too.  Who would have though connect two wires in the Main panel of 110v to create 220v???

 Call the electrician to drill a hole from out side to inside the garage probably 2 feet cost $400 labor or so only. No parts. Too much money for me as I need cash for the car.  Watch YouTube for hours and went to homedepot got the circuit breaker and subpanel... rest is history.  I live by the motto, “ask, and you shall get answer”  don’t be afraid of the question.  If/when you don’t know, you don’t know.  Simple as that.

well, the clock, she holds well.  I’ll leave it connected to the battery overnight and she is ticking every 5 seconds or so. Yippee ?

Will keep her connected for another 12 hr or so and she will be polish and go in.  
 

Do you happen to know the values of those resister and the diode?  There is no number on the diode.  Resister usually have color coded, but this one looks weird 

 

thank you all for the help and guidance 

 

[Captain Obvious]

I don't have one of those clocks and have never seen the insides of one before your pics. So my only source of info is your pictures.

That said... The resistor is a 200 Ohm, 1 Watt resistor.

And the diode is a Zener diode, which is a little special compared to a normal diode. The important parameter of the diode would be it's "Zener voltage", and I cannot tell what that voltage is simply from the pictures. However, from the way it's used in the circuit, I would expect that it's zener voltage is between 5 Volts and 8 Volts.

I doubt there is anything wrong with either of those components, but if you really really want to know more about the Zener, I can talk you through how to measure the voltage in question.

10 hours ago, 240zadmire said:

my greatest strength/asset is willing to try anything.  I observe.

And from what I've seen, you do a great job.

Sometimes, you will go too far over your skis. Hopefully it's recoverable.    

[zclocks]

Good for you. You are extremely lucky that all the teeth on the gears are in tact. Usually 98% of the clocks I see have broken gears.

Report on how the clock performs over the 12 period.

[240zadmire]

@Captain Obvious

you cannot imagine how many time I screw up part of curiosity, part of “what if” had I leave it alone.  It would be working perfectly.  I pushed the limit where I should not, knowingly I don’t understand completely... and still.

should you care about my electronic skills... I had 1 semester in high school for extra curriculum in my junior year.  One hour twice a week.  We covered the basic components such as. Resistors, transistor, potential meter.  I don’t believe we covered capacitor.  We learned a lot of theory. How to read resistor colored coded. It’s application to reduce current... We even build simple circuit such as blinking light and make it blinked faster using potential meter.  All on breadboard.  It was fascinating..... anyway, the main reason I didn’t pursuit electrical engineer mainly due to cost.  Want to good at something, you need practice, lot of practice.  Theory alone won’t cut it for me as I’m a visual and hand on kind of guy.  Buying components were expensive to me as they weren’t readily available like today online.  Information like library vs online is another matter... Only place I know selling them was radio shack.

true story, couple of years back I had to rebuild my car alternator.  Suddenly, the transistor I learned years back make sense.  I mean, alternator means current is alternating. But battery is direct current.  How is it possible that an alternating current able to charge the battery.  It was like a lightbulb turn on my head that the transistor can block one current and allow the other, in one package.  Fascinating.

 

about I had few capacitors readily available is because years ago, I had to recap a “vintage” stereo.  Capacitors were bulging up and looked up online suggest those were dead or on their way out. Keep searching, join forums and people suggest to replace them all since I’m there.... screw up few things here and there, get help, do over... I’m still a monkey see monkey do.  Brain is too dense now.  I wish I have knowledge like you guys understand why and how things work the way they are...

 

@zclocks

I realize and impressed that the gears are that good.  I couldn’t adjust the hour pretty sure $5 is a waste... I was lucky I ran into one of your thread about no need to lube it.  My common sense would just to put a few drop of sewing machine oil.

 

the answers you guys responses only come from not just experience but thoroughly understood why things work like that.  Light is light, LED or incandescent have different applications.  I’m referring to the fuel light on other thread.  I doubt if I bring the car to the shop, they would know about it if there is no “old timer” around, no disrespect here.

 

will keep the clock run to night as well. Got other thing todo tonight and garage/car time is off limit. ?

 

regards

 

[240zadmire]

@Captain Obvious

thanks for those values.  I’m not looking to replace those as I know they’re very hard to die.  Btw, the shapes look like resistor and diode, but I’m more familiar with resistor with stripes and diode look more like a red crystal or a  black cylindrical with a white stripe at one end. Man, if I understood how these things work, there are so many little projects I can do using Arduino, raspberry pi.  Well, can’t learn every thing in one day... got to sort my Z out first before embargo into another .... got to keep cool ?

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by 240zadmire

[240zadmire]

Hi all,

 

after 30 hours or so, connected directly to the car battery (I don’t have a primary DC inverter) I’m very please to see the clock works beautifully.  She ticks every 5 seconds or so.  I did tried to sync my phone clock and hookup the red wire on the clock knowing it’s impossible to sync like that...

I think either the clock run slower 10-15 seconds due to at least 2 factors

- improper sync at the begin

- hour hand and minute hand are not true zero or 12 o’clock.

- one tooth not align to true zero/12 o’clock

come to thing about what I mentioned about putting back the order it came out... the hour and minutes hand should put back later... had a thought last night.... me thinking hahaha

i still think it’s better to put all the gears in first before the hour and minute hands. Though firmly put the minute hand in as well so that it will be straight with all the gears.  Once it is done, put the white plastic on just so that the clock has some reasonable flat surface to stand on its own.  Circuitry boards can be loosely in or not, doesn’t matter at this point.  Now try to align the hour and minute hands as straight and true to zero/12 as possible.  Gently push the hour hand  in using one flat screw driver to make contact.  Once satisfy, push around it or use 2 flat screw drivers for balance and firmly push in. 

Of course if you have other tools such as a stand... might be different story.

 

a few seconds faster/slower of the clock won’t make the car goes any faster.  This is the point I must must must stop.  Otherwise, the likely hood that I’ll screw up beyond the point of return is extremely high regards