Edward,
thank you for this post.  It's inspired me to take another look at my clock.

After Paul posted his instructions I took out the clock from my dash
and installed the new capacitors.  His site is very instructive.    My
clock is exactly like Paul's clock, with two capacitors.

I too was sad when I reinstalled the clock.  My clock is totally dead.
 On the bright side, my dash light does work.

I didn't check the clock with an external 12VDC power supply prior to
reinstalling the clock.  It's possible that one of the leads is
broken.

I think that I'll play around with the clock while it is out of the dash.

Thanks.

-- Craig

On Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:17:01 -0400, Edward Maglott
<emaglott@buncombe.main.nc.us> wrote:
> I recently saw this nice site put together by Paul on fixing the clock in
> his early vanagon:
>
> http://www.pauldottrip.com/84vanagon/analogclock/analogclock.html
>
> I have an '86, and have always been annoyed by the big broken clock in my
> dash.  At one point I was going to swap for the dash with the tach, but
> later decided to add a small external tach.
>
> I expected that the guts of the analog clock in my '86 would be the same as
> the one in Paul's early vanagon.  It is slightly different, having only one
> of the capacitors that Paul replaced.  Otherwise, Paul's instructions are
> excellent.  The one part that I had a little trouble with was actually
> pulling the whole clock out of the "pod."  The key to this is that you have
> to carefully take out the temp and fuel gauges at the same time that you
> pull the clock mechanism out.  I replaced the one capacitor with one from
> Radio Shack.  Hooked the clock up to 12v dc supply, and it started right up
> and kept excellent time for a day or so of testing.
>
> I put the whole thing back in the van, and then the clock did not work.  I
> was sad.  took it all back out and found that the conductor for the clock
> power in the plastic film was broken very near the connector.  I carefully
> soldered a small jumper across the break.  I noted that several of the
> other contact strips at the connector were also in bad shape.  I tried to
> glue them back down to the plastic with no success.  Once again I installed
> the pod back in the van and now my clock worked!  Unfortunately, now my
> dash lights did not work.  I was sad again.  I carefully took things apart
> enough that I could examine the connector.  several of the strips were
> lifted up and folded over.  I tried to put them back in place as best I
> could and carefully slid the connector on.  Everything seems to be working
> now, but I feel like that connection is pretty weak and will not tolerate
> many more cycles of being taken apart and reconnected.  I anticipate
> replacing that connector in the future at some point.
>
> Thanks to Paul for putting that instructional site up to help many of us
> with broken clocks.
>
> Edward
>