Expert: Kenneth Saunders - 3/8/2010

Question
I have a grandfather clock that I built from a kit.  It worked well for several years. Now it stops 2-3 minutes before it chimes the hour.  I'll restart it, but it may go several hours and then stops again.  I re-leveled it, thinking that was the problem to no avail.

Answer
don't know what you do when you "re-level" but try the following, though if the clock is 25 years old it may need an overhaul or replacement.You do have the weights on the way they should be with the heaviest on the right and the next in the middle?

-The pendulum assembly begins at the top with a 1" two legged suspension spring pinned to a brass post sticking out of the back of the rear movement plate.
  Next a silver(probably) suspension leader about 5" long that hooks onto the bottom of the suspension spring and passes through the "foot" shaped forked brass piece (and must be in the center of the fork slot and not be rubbing front or back) that connects into the inside of the movement. Newer movements have a horizontal bar that fits in the brass suspension leader slot.
  Lastly the top of the pendulum hooks onto the bottom of this suspension leader. NOW if all is correctly assembled, swinging the pendulum will get it ticking. The sound of the ticking must sound even or balanced on either side. Not over-swinging one side or the other.
  If it is not sounding even, then push with your hand the top third of the pendulum over to the side that has the excessive overswing. You may feel some resistance but gently push a bit more then try the sound of the ticking after swinging the pendulum freely.
  If the sound is not improved in the balance then do more pushing -if it is now sounding like excessive swing in the opposite direction then push the pendulum to the other side till it sounds a pretty even tick. Clock should run then. .(There is a little slip clutch that you are adjusting when you push the "L" shaped foot to either side.)
  There are a hundred things that could be wrong- you have just taken a tour through the repair of what is wrong 98% of the time!