One of the (few) miracles still working on my 40 year old E-type is the old Smith’s clock. Continuously running over the years, albeit @ 5 minutes slow every 24 hours currently. I sort of enjoy the ticking sound as it is the only electrical draw of which I am aware of with the ignition off.
Is it just me, or do others in this forum also have their (old) Smith’s clocks ticking away happily?
Mine is! And I always make sure that I restart it immediately whenever I connect the battery. It hadn’t run in about 30 years, though…
…but 40 year old?
mine is 51!
David
PS, you can adjust yours. It will take a few days to get it perfect, I dialed in a pendulum clock over the last weeks and you just mark the improvement until it is good enough.
My 68 is one of the Smiths clocks powered by the big “watch” battery. As soon as I wired in a AA it started ticking immediately and kept pretty good time for several years until I accidentally broke off the tab for one of the connectors. Still makes me mad that I did that. I recently put the works from a modern clock in the housing so it runs on a AA again but the hands are a little wider than original and the adjustment is now on the back of the clock.
David
68 E-type FHC
I rebuilt mine from my 1967 OTS recently with the Clocks4Classics semi-digital solution. Now it ticks again like it used to before it died back in 1973.
I wrote an opinion on the conversion here:
https://forums.jag-lovers.com/t/revisiting-jaguar-clock-repair-the-smiths-gold-plated-contacts-conundrum/394095
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I own a 1968 2+2 with the original Smith’s clock. The clock had not run since I inherited the car from my uncle, the original owner, in 1991. The battery was missing, so I needed to track down a replacement. The commonly available 1.5 Volt LR 50 or A1PX battery is the correct choice, such as the Excell A1PX, which are available on eBay for five or six dollars. After replacing the battery last year and adding a drop of low viscosity oil to the clock movements, the clock awakened from it’s slumber and continues to work.
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It’s really cool you got your clock back to ticking!
Note that it’s a different model in later cars mounted in the center panel. The series 1 Smiths clock in the tachometer runs off the car battery.