Clock stopped

[shaunw]

Has anyone managed to dismantle, repair and reassemble the analogue clock on their S4 / GT3 / V8?

Mine has a fault where the minute hand won't go past the little spring for the rod that sets the time. I thought while I have the dash pod off I'd replace it.... until I saw the price!

Plan b was to send it off for repair, so far the cheapest quote is £90 plus postage. Yikes! 

Shaun

Edited October 9, 2022 by shaunw
Spelling

[CarBuff]

At least, you won't get any older now that TIME has STOPPED. 🤪

 

I'm no expert on those clocks (our '88 has the French, digital LCD one), but I DID fix my wife's cuckoo clock by taking off the back and spraying Brakleen inside it...

 

Good luck.

[snowrx]

If you can live with orange clock hands, you can find the VDO clock in Vision (backlit) for $50 and up

https://www.amazon.com/VDO-370-155-Vision-Clock-2-1/dp/B019XF53SQ

VW /Porsche / Audi and others used the Cockpit (more tick marks) series for a time in the eighties, you might find one used at a reasonable price.The illumination is edgelit on these, but the face doesn't match up as well.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125555971350?hash=item1d3bb81516:g:N1sAAOSwafNjNjbK&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoCWh%2F7UJlA%2FatzJ%2Fjybhy%2B%2FNJbxRG%2FBYYbJejZy1qXJiHM613mTHok4acQsxlQI0S8HbQ6GKm8P1o4coufFZyWdfflVkS9oW40ZlIurt2JiDQtf%2BEfBJ3npDjO1T1IwSNJTm162u%2FNwRCJhQZgwpWqMxQIWurYLVf%2FmVY%2FR1nbXd9SYwYVX8a1ccNCCJVC3LAUcUKYq9ByuEMUb%2Bhih7YP0%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR7j2ua34YA

But if it's indeed just a mechanical issue, and you can't break it more than it's already broke, you might carefully pry the back part of the bezel open enough to slip the bezel and glass way from the face of the clock and see if you can address the interference. Open the crimp just enough to get it off with out dinging the front of the bezel, and remember not to ding the front with pliers when you crimp it back on.

And just to complicate things, are you sure you want the time rather than some other information like temperature or pressure or AFR or some other gauge that might fit in the same hole?

[shaunw]

Options that are all worth considering, thanks @snowrx

 

[shaunw]

Success!  Managed to take the clock apart without breaking it and confirm that the minute hand was fouling on the spring for the time adjuster. I couldn't really work out why this was happening but it looked like if I could move the spring about half a millimetre lower, the minute hand would then clear the spring on its way past. As the spring and rod essentially are held in place by the perspex cover I decided to shave a small amount of material from the bottom 180 degrees of the perspex so that it sat slightly lower in the bezel and therefore also allowed the spring to sit slightly lower. Clock now works perfectly.  😎

Shaun

[fjmuurling]

Picture? (Says more than 1000 words) 😉

[snowrx]

I would of nipped off half a mil off of the minute hand, but glad you could fix it!

[shaunw]

7 minutes ago, snowrx said:

I would of nipped off half a mil off of the minute hand, but glad you could fix it!

I thought of doing that but doubted I'd be able to execute it in a fashion that wouldn't notice. My mod is hidden behind the black bezel and you'd never know anything had been tampered with. To me it was the better solution.

4 hours ago, fjmuurling said:

Picture? (Says more than 1000 words) 😉

Not much point as it looks identical to the pic at the top 😄.