How to 'Fix that Clock, that won't Tic-Tock'!!!

[Stripe]

Have a clock that won't tic-tock?

Well, here's a trick to get it to tick!

Should you find yourself with a battery powered clock who's contact connectors have broken off, here is an easy fix if you find yourself unable to find a suitable sized replacement.

The first thing you want to do is determine if the clock will still work by battery.

Have a look at this photo.

By taking a six inch wire, cutting it in half, remove about a 1/4" of insulation from all the ends of both 3" lengths. Next twist the ends and flatten them a bit so as to slip the ends into the small slots pointed out in the photo. Then, match the polarity and put the loose ends to a battery.  If you removed the hands, you should still hear a tick if this trick works.  It worked for me so I moved on to the next step.

By the way, for some reason I couldn't just put the wire to the battery ends and touch it to the bigger metal parts shown in the battery compartment even after cleaning it off with a wire brush (I believe the metal for the battery contacts is non conductive with a conductive material electroplated to it).

Once you establish that the clock does indeed still work, the next step is to solder the wire lengths directly to the printed circuit board as shown in the next picture. There is one small metal screw that holds the rear plate in place. Remove it, and then VERY CAREFULLY lift the back plate off. Don't mess with the gears.

After soldering the ends to the PCB, I made the swirls of the loose ends, put them into the battery slot and pressed the battery into place.

All this can be achieved without removing the clock mechanism from the clock face.  I decided to remove it from the face because I wanted to replace the hands.  Pretty easy job to remove it too.  First, just pull the second hand straight out. If the second hand comes out with a long metal dowel still in the brass part of the hand, it will have to be removed and carefully pushed back into the center shaft. After that unscrew the small circular retainer nut that is holding the minute hand in place and pull straight up. Next, pull the hour hand up in the same fashion.
Now to the nut holding the clocks' mechanism in place, just remove that and the washers, putting them in a safe place so as to not lose them and the clockwork just comes right off.

Here are the old hands and related hardware that hold them in place.

Now, as to the replacement hands, that was easy.  These battery powered clocks all have a universal sized fit for their hands, the difference is in the length of the clock shaft (no snickering from the peanut gallery).  So I went to my local Goodwill store and purchased a working donor clock for US$1.50.
Here is a photo of the clock with its new hands in place and working like, well, Clockwork.. 

The clock I got the hands from was a larger radius clock, so I had to trim the hands down a bit so as to allow them to 'go round' without hitting the outer clock frame.
Here is another pic of the clock.  Wanted to show that the second hand had moved. 

After this I set the clock to the right time and went home.

Here is a Youtube link to the clock working.
http://youtu.be/YkdIw2YmCKM

With enough patience, you can go to any Goodwill or similar type store and find a clock mechanism that will fit the face without having to fix the original.  The cool thing about the Goodwill was that all the battery powered clocks were either US$2.99 or US$3.99.  The day I went there was 50% off red tags, so I got mine at half off.
Hope this helps anyone with the same problem.  The biggest reason I did this was to see if it could be done.

I won...

[Madathlon]

Very cool, and a great job. Did you also change the clock numbering or just give them a good cleaning?

[Stripe]

Oddly I dun remember if I dusted it, although to look at the pic, it IS dusty and the last one it's clean.

[Mytdawg]

I always use percussive maintenance.  If you smack it too hard it probably needed replacing anyway!   :)rotflmao

[HandyDan]

What a coincidence.  I have that very same clock and when I went to change the battery last week, the battery contacts just disintegrated from corrosion.  I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a new mechanism and switched them out. Works great, now.   

[Stripe]

No coincidence.  I saw your post about yours and wanted to see if I could go the cheapy route for repair.
Glad to see that you DID, in fact, find one that fit!

Like I said at the end of the original post.. " The biggest reason I did this was to see if it could be done.

I won..."   

[Stripe]

Clock repair revisit.
Well, the clock started acting funny running intermittently so I removed it and started fiddling with it again. (Mytdawg, No, I did not give it a percussive test.. )


The corrosion sorta ate through some of the PCB and caused one of the wires to come loose so I redid the wiring, this time I re-soldered it directly to the 555IC Timer chips' pin number 2. 
It's the left wire in the photo.

I also attached two spade connectors to the battery ends of the wire for better contact.
After I was done I did use the "Shaky Shaky" test and it passed.