E body clock stem pieces (standard gauges)

[gzig5]

That was the question I posed when I started the thread. Apparently if the reset stem has a nice clock, it's worth at least $350.

I took some time to accurately measure and draft out my findings for anyone to use. Any decent shop or home machinist should be able to make nice copies with this information. It's not a terribly complicated piece of engineering.

Excellent.  I'll take a closer look at the details later this week. 

I guess one question I have is why these are missing on so many cars? Looks like the sleeve holds the shaft up into the clock and you'd have to purposely remove it or it would need to come loose.  Mine has the collar but no inner shaft.  I just tried and that collar is not coming loose without something other than my fingers to grip it.

What's engaging the clock on that shaft?  It would have to be that shoulder with the flats because the end of the shaft is round, correct?  Helps to know how it works to figure out tolerances.  If you give them +/- 0.001" on everything based off the measurements, you're cost is going to skyrocket.
I'd also like to know

[70 Challenger Lover]

Hard to say why they are missing. I had to hold the base with pliers to get the collar loose. It wasn't super tight but it was certainly tight enough to never fall out.

I'll put some detailed pics up now. The stem inside the collar has flats that line up to a corresponding piece on the back of the clock. It will spin freely until you depress the knob 1/4" then it allows everything to engage so you can spin the hands of the clock.

[70 Challenger Lover]

As far as tolerances, I'd say + or - .005. It's not critical as long as the stem is strong enough to handle torsional stress (which should be minimal on a little clock)

[7E-Bodies]

Dammit @70 Challenger Lover! You left out the angle of the chamfered bevel and didn't notate X,Y and Z planes!  Just kidding.  Man you nailed it. This is priceless info going forward. @Cuda Cody might want to put this one in the archives. Great job!!!

[70 Challenger Lover]

As I was doing it, I was having flashbacks to my 7th and 8th grade drafting classes. I wanted to get it out there on a thread in the open so anyone with a lathe in their garage could attempt it. I'm hoping in time some company will just take the info and mass produce them. Making the clocks has to be 100xs more engineering and manufacturing effort so if they bothered to do them in the aftermarket world, they should be motivated to do the rest of the needed pieces.

[Ricomondo]

Do you think that's a good price?

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That is high for an NOS piece, and the other guy on Ebay has a BIN for $500.
The clocks for the Challenger and Barracuda NOS should be around $240-$300.
But as is with anything else, its what the buyer is willing to pay. There is a Barracuda clock on ebay for $270 with stem and its priced accordingly.

[70 Challenger Lover]

Here it is installed in case anyone is curious of the final look.

[7E-Bodies]

Looks great. Who'd have thought 30+ years ago that a dashboard click would mean so much?

[1 Wild R/T]

Here it is installed in case anyone is curious of the final look.

Got the clock but no radio...Odd....

The knob & tube always falls off, I use to install it with channel locks & a year later it would fall off... Got to the point I kept it in the ashtray....

[ClarkWGrizwald]

Blue thread lock?


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[70 Challenger Lover]

I guess we have an answer why so many are missing now. They probably got tossed over the years.

I am a details kind of person. I just realized that my clock is frozen and that just won't do. I can see one of my future projects will be to remove the cluster, have the clock upgraded to quartz if possible, refresh the bezel with the silver on the outer edges, and of course using loctite red on the stem collar so it never falls out.

As far as my car's options, yeah it does seem weird that someone would order a convertible with a power top, add a clock, a console and two tone seats, but not pay a couple bucks for a radio. I'm glad they didn't though, I love the sleek look without an antenna! It has power steering which I love but I also wished they ordered power brakes.

[1 Wild R/T]

Thing is if you use loctite your gambling you'll never have to get into the dash.... Cause you can't remove the bezel without removing the stem.... And even blue loctite is gonna cause the brass thread portion of the clock to spin....  And you can't get heat up to the area where the loctite is....  So I just tightened it a few times, had it fall on the floor, find it down under the seat & leave it in the ashtray....

If it were to fall on the floor allot of people probably didn't realize what it was & either tossed it or tossed it in a drawer....

[gzig5]

There are low strength thread lockers (purple?) that don't require a torch to loosen.  Another option would be to fashion a thin lock washer.  And finally, the easiest option is to reach down and tighten it once a week.  How often do you drive your cars?  They aren't seeing 1000+ miles a month like they did back in the day so there isn't going to be as much vibration to loosen them up.

My clock "works" in that the second hand moves about as fast as the hour hand but the other two have never moved.  It's always 9:20 in the Cuda. Right twice a day.

[70 Challenger Lover]

On all my cars, I disconnect the battery when I'm not driving so if knowing the time was important to me, I'd have to reset it every time I drove the car. I like everything in my cars to function correctly though so having a working clock and reset would be good enough for me.

[7E-Bodies]

If a machine shop is fairly modern, they should have a CNC machine that could closely reproduce that knob and it's original texture as well. Worth looking into.