Removing a jammed clock bracket and servicing the clock

[coppinpr]

When I was working in an arcade in the 70's the engineer who was teaching me said you can always fix a slot machine without much trouble...unless its the clock thats broke! Since then Ive always had a fear of working on slot clocks. In fact ,they are not a lot of trouble really.

At the moment Im trying to save a very old clock from a Jennings Victoria so I thought Id document the work for newcomers that might fear attacking a damaged/gummed up clock.

The biggest problem was that the main top bracket that holds the spring was broken, a later jennings bracket is no good at all and I was lucky to get one from Dave at Mrslot who searched through his "box or bits" and found one for me.
With the new one in the post I set about removing the broken one... not easy. it was jammed solid on the shaft with corrosion and..of course. the retaining pin through the middle was never going to move.
So first job, drill out the pin, not as bad as I expected ,but I did go a little too far on one side with the larger of the two bits I used. (photo 1 ,note the factory use of slot tokens as weights on the fan)

having easily drilled all the way through,as expected nothing was moving at all, so I turned to a very useful tool I can recommend wholeheartedly , the mini angle grinder set for the drimell craft drill. These have a unique 2 sec click on fitting and work perfectly, just be sure to wear eye protection. With this grinder I cut both sides of the bracket connector,eased it apart and it lifted off,no problem.

Of course this method only works if the bracket is to be replaced.
Opening the clock is just three screws at this stage ,lift off the top plate and remove the parts placing them in order so as not to get confused when rebuilding (note the fan gear and the idler gear will fit in the wrong places and will appear to work but it will not run correctly so make sure each is in its correct place))

Cleaning is now easy ,and a good job I made the effort , two of the three spring loaded ratchets were jammed solid, they would work but would have caused massive wear to the middle gear.

all cleaned and oiled everything slotted back together easily and now...well it runs like a well oiled clock!!

[badpenny]

Nicely put Paul.
I remember tackling the clock was the last thing I ever attempted, I put it off for ages and it's certainly daunting.
This should help many and give them the confidence to have a go.

[alex74]

Yes I must admit this sort of info will be very useful for people. Thanks for going through it and posting pics