Kienzle dashboard clock back-light colour?

[A TR7 16V]

Hi, I'm hoping someone here can help with some information on E-Types.
I bought a couple of broken Kienzle electro-mechanical dashboard clocks (and repaired them), which I thought were all the same and all fit both Daimler DS420 and E-Type (I think series 3 V12). However, one odd one lights up blue for a white bulb in the back, whereas, the rest, and all the ones I can identify elsewhere, light up green.
In which case, I wonder whether the blue one is E-type and the green are for Daimlers, or there's some other uses of this particular style of Kienzle clock in a car with blue dashboard lighting, e.f. Rover or Ford. So I'm hoping someone can tell me what colour lights are used on the E-Type models.

DSCF5269 comp.JPG (25.33 KiB) Viewed 6181 times

This is one of the green ones - the blue one is still in paint and waiting for reassembly.

BTW, I've looked and swapping the plastic insert between clocks, i.e. taking a blue one out of a Rover/Ford, or a green one from a Triumph/Daimler, and that would be a difficult job. I haven't yet managed to get the hands off one of the clocks of this style yet, and it looks like a full disassembly of the clockwork movement or a level of brute force and massive ignorance I won't risk. So it would mean, at least, swapping the whole mechanism, and that would include the face, which is different from the all the Rover/Ford ones I've seen so far - though that only runs to about a dozen.

Also, I'm repairing these clocks because I had to learn how to repair the one in my 73 Dolomite Sprint, and making the tools and leaning how cost some time and effort and not a few failed attempts. So I'm doing what I can to put a few of the dead ones back into use, and try and recover some of my costs.

[Philk]

Only the S1 E-Type had Blue instrument backlighting. This was through to September 1966 when it changed to green. However, the clocks were not the same as the one you pictured (which are for later model E-Types).

[AussieEtype]

My Series 3 clock is green.

[A TR7 16V]

Thanks for that.

I was a bit worried, because I sold a green one to someone restoring a series 3 E-Type V12, and was concerned it might have been wrong - though I did say it was a green backlight one in the listing. But I'm reassured now and can list the other I have without worry.

Any info on what was fitted to the early cars? I have another one that lights up blue I can't identify. It's the same dimensions and 3 spring-clip fitting, but a less fancy dial face. It looks like the face used on the P6 and Cortina, but they have a different fitting on the clock body.

As to this blue one, I've seen pictures on the Internet of one of these in a Mk1 Escort, but there are so many cars with different clocks fitted, it's hard to know what's original and what's not. And maybe there's someone out there converting their 2500TC or DS420 to a blue lit dash.

BTW, if anyone has one or more of these Kienzle 65mm bezel clocks that doesn't work, I'm getting a good rate of success in fixing them - mostly it's an internal thermal fuse/circuit-breaker where the 90C melting point solder seems to fall off the plated spring arm after 40 years of the solenoid going clunk every minute. My solution is to solder that up with normal stuff, and fit an external, in-line 0.8Amp fuse.

Graham

[christopher storey]

The early cars, up to the S2 E, had the small clock mounted within the dial of the tachometer at the bottom

[A TR7 16V]

Thanks a lot. You guys have been really, really helpful. Wish that were so of all the fora.

Graham

[A TR7 16V]

Probably just one of them things, but soon as I work out that the Kienzle model 8015 clock is the one for the S3 V12 E-type, several wrong ones turn up on eBay advertised as genuine E-type parts. One is a model 8013, which has an all chrome bezel, and one's a model 8014. Both of these light up blue. However, in neither case do they mention the blue backlight.

Just though I'd mention it in case anyone looks at them and assumes they are green ones.

Graham

[AussieEtype]

Isn't the colour determined by the cover over the light globe - change the colour of the cover and change the colour of the backlight?

[A TR7 16V]

No, it's not like the smiths fuel/temp gauges etc. In this case, there's a plastic sleeve up the sides of the clock face with an annular prism and a reflector behind the glass that direct the light onto the face. It's that sleeve and prism that set the colour.

It would be possible to swap the sleeves between two clocks, say from a broken one with a green sleeve to a working blue one. However, you have to get the hands off, then the face, to do that. And as far as I can see the clock is built from the hands backwards. Like TR7s are built around the heater matrix.

I've have looked at them a fair bit, but I can't see a way to swap the sleeves without either taking the whole mechanism apart or swapping the whole internal mechanism. The first is too hard and the second defeats the whole object.

Graham

[AussieEtype]

Ok - thanks for that explanation - my clock has always worked but never runs on time but I have never been tempted to pull it apart.

[A TR7 16V]

Took me a while to get to it - most of yesterday, I was up to me elbows upgrading a Herald dashboard to Vitesse like spec - but here's a picture of a disassembled Kienzle Model 8015:

autopsy..JPG (77.55 KiB) Viewed 5969 times

The 8014 is the same, but the plastic is blue, and the 8013 also has a chrome bezel. I've s suspicion that 8012 might have a black and chrome bezel, but I know 8011 has a different face - and fits Ford Escorts. I'm looking for 8010 and 8016.

The mirrored ring in the middle is actually two parts, a flat ring and a conical pressing. Both are black from the front.

As said, it's the hands that hold the face and so the plastic insert to the mechanisms. An short of pulling them off with the smallest hub puller in the world, which I might try if I ever get a truly dead mech of this type, it looks like taking the electrics and the clockwork off from the back. And even then, it may mean swapping the front of the chassis and hands as well.

The difficult part in getting this far is taking the bezel off without the sides bending in or it splitting. There are a set of instructions on the Web for how to do that with a screwdriver and a vice that are virtually certain to end up with a knackered bezel, and possibly a working clock. I know, cos I followed them once.

Graham

[A TR7 16V]

Ok - thanks for that explanation - my clock has always worked but never runs on time but I have never been tempted to pull it apart.

There's an adjuster down a hole in the back that may fix it. Looking from the back, turns clockwise its running slow, anti-clockwise if fast. It seems to vary between clocks how many degrees of turn for how many mins a day. However, its something like 4 or 5 mins a day for one full turn.

I hope access isn't as poor as it is in the dolomite, where you have to take the glovebox door off and the inner part of the box out to even get to the clock.

Graham

[AussieEtype]

Hi Graham - yes adjusted it etc but the clock does not run at a constant speed so irrespective how it is adjusted at the adjustment screw it always still gets out of time. Something to live with - maybe it just needs a good clean inside and a lube where necessary so that it does then run constantly and can be adjusted - it certainly winds up OK on the electrical side so maybe a good horologist can clean and lube the clockwork side - or rip the lot out and put a good quartz movement inside.

Cheers

Garry

[A TR7 16V]

It probably is dirt in the movement then. They do seem to clean up well though. I even got this one stabilize for a clean and lube:

cluncker2.jpg (71.64 KiB) Viewed 5874 times

Just wish I knew what it was from, cos I've seen nothing quite like it, like a Rover P6 one but with the red hands.
The problem is in removing the bezel. That has to be unroved from the body with some care or it will split and or distort. The instructions that can be found on the Net are very bad and I think guaranteed to knacker it. If there are any over there, you could do as I did and get a couple of junkers out of Fords or the like, and practice. There are some available over here for £10-£15. I think it was worth it to me to repair the original one in my Sprint.
As to a quartz movement, this is a cheep solution, and can use a bezel that's a bit split:

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IMG-20210411-130920.jpg (148.92 KiB) Viewed 5874 times

The face is just a printed out and lacquered picture I drew, so can be anything - I saw a jpg of the 8013/4/5 face on line somewhere, but I can't find it again now.

The movement is a 65mm clock that was £2.50 ish from China, filed down to fit in a shortened plastic sleeve, with some of the back of the movement case cut away to let light through, and with a thin O-ring to hold it into the clock body. The knob that used to set the time, now glued in the glass, serves as a handle to pull it out to change the time from the back. I did have to make the hands from some scratch-modeller's plasticard, but it was like half an hours work with drill, saw, and file.

The replacement for the AAA battery is an old energizer cut up, inside which is two diodes in series, forward biased, with a 1k resistor up to the 12v supply. You can buy them, but they are surprising expensive for what they are.

The sleeve I used is from an 77 doly clock - nasty transistorized magneto-mechanical movement that didn't last well. But any one with the right colour sleeve and bezel will do.