1956 Speaker and clock questions

[brainfrz]

Hey all,

Been working on my 1956 Clipper model 5662.

I replaced the clock fuse but I'm still not getting any movement. Is there any bench testing that can be done to see if the clock is still in working order?

Question 2: The radio illuminates but there is no sound. I assume the speaker power supply is burnt, how would I test this on the bench also?

Cruised on the freeway for the first time today - nice ride at 65-70mph. No issues at all.

Thanks

Jon

[Guest Randy Berger]

The clock is electrically wound. You can manually wind it and verify that the mechanism works. You could hook it up to your battery with jumper wires and observe that the winding is accomplished properly. Use a point file on the electrical contacts.

I'll leave the radio commentary to those who are familiar with it.

[mrpushbutton]

Randy is right about filing the contacts inside the clock. If you take the clock action out of the housing you will see a small set of points that close when the main spring is almost out of tension. The points on these clocks will pit and not conduct electricity (as the battery loses voltage during periods of no charging the clock is still running. The coil is an inductor, which will always try to do the same amount of "work", or work at the same strength. As the voltage lowers, the coil wants more current (amps) and that current exceeds the rating of the 'lil points.) File the points with a small file; maybe clean them up further with some emery cloth. NOTE: if you direct-wire the clock to a battery for bench testing, use three alligator leads and run either ground or hot through a fuse, I think the clock circuit is rated at 3 amps, but DON'T hook up the clock to the battery without some kind of fusing. I worked in a shop where we had the "clock expert", I hooked up the clock to the battery per the above after he told me "take the clock out of the dash and hook it up to the battery" I did, he disconnected it to take it to his bench and do his thing. When he hooked it back up the whole fusing thing was beyond his sphere of understanding, so he direct-wired it to the battery. A few minutes later we smelled something burning. The coils burned up real good! You might want to oil the clock mechanism with some fine oil.

On your radio, do you hear a mild buzzing sound when you turn it on? Those radios have a vibrator, which is located with the speaker/final amp assembly. If the vibrator isn't working you will get no high-voltage for the tubes, and no sound.

[Guest Randy Berger]

Not to put too fine a point on it <img src="http://forums.aaca.org/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />, but I wouldn't use emery paper on the contacts. A decent point file can be had for $1.00 and emery paper may leave small pieces of emery deposited on the contacts. Same reason you don't use it on your points in the distributor.

[brainfrz]

Thanks for the initial thoughts. I was wondering about fusing the link during bench testing and you confirmed my thought process. It seems that the hands move freely when I manually rotate the clock. I will look at the areas you suggested.

Thanks.

Jon

[Guest Albert]

Inside the clock is a lever that winds the clock, and a coil that attracts the lever when the main spring of the clock winds down, through a set of points. you can manually wind the clock just by moving the lever and it should run for 10 min or so.. as far as the radio go the radio is in two parts, the speaker part contains the powersupply and the amp, it has a viburator, OZ4 tube and transformer which produces about 200+ volts to run the radio and the amp, if you need the schematics let me know on those, ...

[brainfrz]

Schematic on radio/speaker combo would be great. My first question is the wires from the radio to speaker/power supply, what are the three terminals for on the plug?

Jon

[Guest Albert]

one wire is the high voltage out to run the radio head, one is audio into the amp, third is 6V power to the power supply..