philipj Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 (edited) Does anyone know how to wire the clock on the F-36? The red wire could be power, the black wire for the light, and the yellow a ground? I just have to connect the power wire to the parking light switch position for parking lights or headlights I suppose... As for running the harness from the glovebox out, how was it done originally? The new cardboard glove box does not have a hole to run the wiring harness through to the light switch... One interesting thing found on this original untouched clock is the presence of another socket on the wiring harness... Where does it really go? Edited October 12, 2023 by philipj (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, philipj said: the black wire for the light, I would imagine one wire goes pretty directly into a bulb socket at the clock end. I am not quite seeing it. Is that the black? 6 hours ago, philipj said: I just have to connect the power wire to the parking light switch position for parking lights or headlights I suppose... How do your dash lights work? If you had a Buick or a Pontiac of that year, there would be a switch for the dash lights hanging through the lower lip of the dash just barely to the left of center. If you have a switch like that in the Oldsmobile, I imagine the bulb wire connects to it. If you really do mean the power wire for the clock (not the bulb) then it needs to be hot all the time. or at least it did in 1936. I'd leave the clock power disconnected. 6 hours ago, philipj said: One interesting thing found on this original untouched clock is the presence of another socket on the wiring harness... Where does it really go? Good question. Could it be half of a "GM connector"? https://www.riwire.com/Catalogs/sup/pages/bullets.htm Edited October 12, 2023 by Bloo (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandy Dave Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 I just took a harness out of one recently. The power wire came off of the hot side of the light switch if memory serves me correctly and was fused. The other wire was to ground. The light wire was wired in with the dash lights. Dandy Dave. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oldtech Posted October 12, 2023 Share Posted October 12, 2023 The cylindrical connector may be half a fuse holder. That will be clock power. Forked connector should be ground. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dandy Dave Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 20 hours ago, Oldtech said: The cylindrical connector may be half a fuse holder. That will be clock power. Forked connector should be ground. Yes it is. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted October 13, 2023 Author Share Posted October 13, 2023 (edited) Hello there, I think I can answer Bloo much better with photos and also say that the original fuse holder is very similar to the small GM metal connector (too bad I could not adapt one for this purpose) I also would like to thank Dandy Dave and Oldtech for clarification regarding the connections... With my clock wiring harness we have: 1- Red= Power (fused/20 amp?) to any (most accessible) hot side of light switch, Delco 479-k... 2- Black= Ground 3- Yellow= Clock light to dash light switch, Delco 1404 My next question is, where to find a fuse holder that has the vintage look and as for leaving the clock disconnected, are you afraid that it will be a significant drain to the battery enough to cause a problem? I connect the battery on a tender most of the time...;) I suppose that having a fused connection would give me the option to easily disconnect it... I have one more electrical/accessory question, can anyone guess what it is? It appears on three of these photos... Thank you for all your help! Edited October 13, 2023 by philipj (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 Am I missing something? It sure looks like black goes into a bulb socket. I cant see for sure because we haven't seen that side of the clock, but I am thinking yellow has to be the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, philipj said: are you afraid that it will be a significant drain to the battery enough to cause a problem? I connect the battery on a tender most of the time...;) I suppose that having a fused connection would give me the option to easily disconnect it... Borg clocks (and others with a similar mechanism) are notoriously trouble. They don't draw much, so don't run the battery dead quickly. They have a solenoid that pulls a half turn or something on the mainspring every few minutes when it gets low. It is in intermittent "BJEEP!" and then nothing for a while. It is a draw though, and left sit a long time, that plus the natural self discharge of the battery will run the voltage low, and eventually it wont be able to wind. Since it didn't wind, it's points wont open, and the coil inside, being an intermittent duty coil, is a huge draw, but can't handle all that current. It runs the battery completely dead at that point, usually ruining the battery by sitting dead for days before you figure out what happened. It also uses the remaining energy that was left in the battery to burn up the coil and points in the clock. The clock is partly shorted at that point, because it's coil is burned and it's points are stuck shut. If you are lucky the coil might survive, but the points are still stuck. When the battery gets replaced, maybe the owner does not notice, and it runs the new battery dead overnight, over and over again, until someone figures out the clock is doing it. If you drive the car a lot it probably wont happen. If you religiously keep a tender on it anytime the car is going to sit more than a couple or three days it should be fine. The points can still stick and burn the coil up, but that is less likely. Old ones like yours are much higher quality than the ones of the 60s and 70s, so you've got that going for you. 1 hour ago, philipj said: My next question is, where to find a fuse holder that has the vintage look and as for leaving the clock disconnected Is this it? https://www.riwire.com/Catalogs/sup/pages/junction.htm Edited October 13, 2023 by Bloo (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted October 13, 2023 Author Share Posted October 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Bloo said: Am I missing something? It sure looks like black goes into a bulb socket. I cant see for sure because we haven't seen that side of the clock, but I am thinking yellow has to be the ground. Maybe I should remove the small cover behind the clock and see where the yellow wire goes... From the original photo (even though we cannot tell the color of the wire) it seems that the longer wire or power (hot) wire has a socket which we established is a fused connection right? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 I think so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted October 13, 2023 Author Share Posted October 13, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Bloo said: Borg clocks (and others with a similar mechanism) are notoriously trouble. They don't draw much, so don't run the battery dead quickly. They have a solenoid that pulls a half turn or something on the mainspring every few minutes when it gets low. It is in intermittent "BJEEP!" and then nothing for a while. It is a draw though, and left sit a long time, that plus the natural self discharge of the battery will run the voltage low, and eventually it wont be able to wind. Since it didn't wind, it's points wont open, and the coil inside, being an intermittent duty coil, is a huge draw, but can't handle all that current. It runs the battery completely dead at that point, usually ruining the battery by sitting dead for days before you figure out what happened. It also uses the remaining energy that was left in the battery to burn up the coil and points in the clock. The clock is partly shorted at that point, because it's coil is burned and it's points are stuck shut. If you are lucky the coil might survive, but the points are still stuck. When the battery gets replaced, maybe the owner does not notice, and it runs the new battery dead overnight, over and over again, until someone figures out the clock is doing it. If you drive the car a lot it probably wont happen. If you religiously keep a tender on it anytime the car is going to sit more than a couple or three days it should be fine. The points can still stick and burn the coil up, but that is less likely. Old ones like yours are much higher quality than the ones of the 60s and 70s, so you've got that going for you. Is this it? https://www.riwire.com/Catalogs/sup/pages/junction.htm You are a wealth of information my friend and I appreciate you putting it down for me to see, thank you... As for the fuse holder, I think that will work, I just have to take off the rear cover and see if I can confirm how the wiring should be done... My last electrical question from the photos is the cigarette lighter... It is my understanding that the power comes also from the light switch but I do not know from which hot terminal, if it matters on the 479-K switch... Edited October 13, 2023 by philipj (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Posted October 13, 2023 Share Posted October 13, 2023 If it connects to the light switch for sure, then anything on the hot side of the switch. They usually leave an extra screw or two for accessories, but you could pile a couple of terminals up if you needed to. I suspect all that protrusion at the top of the switch in the picture is hot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted October 14, 2023 Author Share Posted October 14, 2023 (edited) You're correct, the protrusion is hot and I believe is a circuit breaker similar to what is found on various light switches from the 40's... Edited October 14, 2023 by philipj (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipj Posted October 15, 2023 Author Share Posted October 15, 2023 (edited) Just got around removing the clock cover and the revised answer is... 1- Red= Power (fused/20 amp?) to any (most accessible) hot side of Delco 479-k light switch... 2- Black= Clock light to Delco 1404 dash light switch... 3- Yellow= Ground I'm afraid that Bloo wins with the correct answer!.... Somehow I would never choose yellow for ground, but black, brown, or even blue... Edited October 15, 2023 by philipj (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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