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Repairing dials
Many
dials become sluggish after a while, usually through
dust and/or over-lubrication in the past. If you are
lucky they will respond to a very small drop of light oil on the insides of the
governor cup and on the governor worm drive (DO NOT use
WD40). If this fails
then you will have
to do a full disassembly job (tedious!), followed by
washing in white spirit. Afterwards lubricate the
re-assembled item with a minute amount of watch oil. You may
find that electronics component shops sell a micro-spout oiler
containing oil and Teflon particles for a very
moderate price.
If
the problem is dial spring, this advice from
Steve Hilz will help:-
Rewinding the spring - “You can rewind dial
springs by carefully pushing the mainspring into the
holder and working it into the centre as you go. You
have to watch out that you don't let the spring
release, but it will go back OK with some patience. Wear
safety goggles and gloves so you don't cut yourself.
Broken spring - If you
have a broken spring near the end, you can anneal it
in a flame and let it cool gradually. Then, make the
bend that you want to be permanent. Then, reheat the
portion of spring that you annealed, until it is red,
then quench it in cold water to restore the
temper� (To be honest it is probably best to obtain a
replacement spring).
Usual dial failures are:-
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Noise - Lubricate governor cup - a drop of light oil on the end
of a small screwdriver.
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Slowness - Check for dirt and fluff on the gearing. Remove
and just dab a minute drop of oil on the governor spindle.
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Slowness - Lubricate governor cup and dial central spindle.
If that doesn't work then note that the central spindle can become packed with oil residue - complete strip
down to cure this. On reassembly use a very, very small amount of oil
on the central
spindle.
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Dial not returning - Firstly check for fluff and dirt.
Then check the spindle to see if seized. To do this remove
the governor and clutch. If the central spindle still will
not rotate or rotating very slowly then the dial is seized or
the return spring is broken -
complete strip down.
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Dial not returning but spindle rotates - probably a broken dial spring
- complete strip down and replace the spring.
Tips:-
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Dial speed - dial the digit 0 to the finger stop and on it's return say
"one - one thousand and one" at normal speech speed.
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Broken dial spring - generally all GPO dial springs from the
Dials No's
10 to 30 will work in any dial.
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Do not dowse in oil. A drop on the tip of a very small
screwdriver is more than enough. Oil tends to go sticky
with age and gunge up!
Dial 10 - 11 adjustment Document
Dial 12 - 30 adjustment Document
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