WE 5H Dial Disassembly

[TelePlay]

I took this dial apart in August of 2019 but never posted either the images or the text that was to accompany the annotated images.

I found a Word document which was the description to annotate the images. Don't have time to put the images and the text together so am posting the text here and the images attached to this and the following reply. The #XX numbers in the test do correspond the the numbers in the images.

With the SMF software having been updated to a newer version since I first created this information, I've made an attempt to insert to numbered images into the text where they seem to fit best. Please adjust for any misplacement of images if necessary.

Please note that any reference to using an ultrasonic cleaner to clean parts is obsolete in my workshop. I now use lacquer thinner, a toothbrush, a dental or round tooth pick and compressed air to clean all parts.



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After using an ultrasonic cleaner to "clean" assembled dials in a soapy aqueous bath, Jeff lamb finally convinced me that the only way a dial can be properly serviced (cleaned and lubricated) was by taking it completely apart.

I know quite a few long time hobbyists already clean their dials this way. This topic is being offered to forum members interested in cleaning dials, members new to the hobby who are not aware of how easy it is to clean a dial correctly and those members, who like me in the past, who were scared off from cleaning a dial this way by some member's past posts describing "parts flying everywhere" when taking a dial apart, a false fear.

After a bit of experience, doing 2 or 3 dials, I've found that total disassembly takes about 10 minutes, cleaning the parts another 20 minutes and then another 10 to 15 minutes to put it all back together.

After cleaning a half dozen or so dials this way, I am fully convinced that complete dial disassembly is the only way to get hardened oils and dirt out of the hidden and hard to access areas of a dial. It is also the only way to properly lubricate a dial using quality thixotropic clock grease inside the main spring shaft tunnel and long lasting synthetic clock oil on all axle bearing points, thrust washers and gear teeth.

A bit about lubricants learned from Jeff Lamb and internet research. I now only use synthetic clock oil and thixotropic clock grease. Specifically, I use Moebius Synt-A-Lube 9010 synthetic clock oil and Moebius 8200 natural grease. The synthetic oil does not attract dust, dry out over time or chemically change when placed on metal parts into a gummy substance which will slow down dial speed (a known property of petroleum based mineral clock oils) and will require re-cleaning and lubricating within one to two years.

This topic is intended as a quick, first look overview of dial parts as they are taken out of the dial case. Thinking about it, dials are a simple mechanical device designed by engineers to be put together by factory line workers hired of the street. As such, dials are just as easy to be taken apart for cleaning by anyone interested in cleaning and lubricating a dial to get it back into as near to as first built factory conditions as possible. This step by step dial disassembly is offered as a quick and crude outline or summary of how it's done, to get any interested member a few steps down the down the learning curve of dial cleaning of correctly cleaning and lubricating a dial. Once a person does a few dials, say 2 or 3, and gets over the initial fear of "flying parts," the cleaning and lubricating process becomes a fun and rewarding task.

This topic is offered as both a quick "how to" and encouragement for those interested. First dial you do will take the longest. Second dial will be much easier and after that, it's a piece of cake to do it right. I've been servicing dials this way for only about a month now and each time I do one can't help thinking of why I haven't been doing dials this way for the past 8 years.

I realize the long time hobbyists may be able to write more elegant instructions with better images and name all of the thingy parts correctly so anyone with a lot of experience cleaning dials this way who can add to the steps below, correct anything said including terms used or offer tips or good advice on how to do this work is invited to do so.

Bottom line, this should be useful to anyone interested in trying to service a dial this way and who has the few simple tools to do the work (small screw drivers and wrenches).

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This is how I've been taking WE 5H dials apart. Others may do so in a slightly different order but this is how I do it easily and with great success. After being serviced, the dial works like new.
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Subject dial rotating at 5.9 PPS mounted in a WE 302, #1

Back of dial when removed from the phone, #2

Front of dial when removed from phone, #3

Remove the number card holder, #4



Remove the center nut and star washer, #5

Lift off the finger wheel, #6

Remove the number plate retainer, #7

Lift off the number plate, #8



Carefully lift off the paper dust gasket, #9

Lift off the 3 winged gasket support plate, #10

Notes: In image #11, note how the pawl brake screws are tightened down (yellow circle). The brake plate screw holes are elongated to allow for proper adjustment of the pawl brake when putting the dial back together. Also, note the dial stop arm is tight against the dial stop plate stub (red arrow) with about 1.5 to 1.75 turns of tension on the spring. Once the dial stop plate is removed (the 3 screws in the blue circles), the dial spring will fully unwind.

Next, remove the two screws, white arrows in #11, holding the finger stop in place and lifting the finger stop out of the dial case, #12 (note, the image #12 shows the finger stop being removed much later so from this point on so all proceeding images will have a yellow "X" over the finger stop indicating it was removed at this point is dial disassembly - the reason for taking the finger stop off at this point is to give access to the 3rd dial stop plate screw which is under the finger stop).
Turn the dial over and remove the 2 screws (flat head short screw on the left, longer round head screw on the right) shown with the white arrows in #13



Once the screws are removed, lift the switch pile up and off the dial case, #14

Notes:

Look at the shunting post mounted on top of the main spring gear shaft (green arrow in #14). When the dial stop arm (green dot in #15) is tight against the dial stop plate stub (green arrow in #15), the shunting post is next to the small hole in the dial case (green arrow in #14) that is used to hold the dial main spring (on the other side – shown later). Once the dial stop plate is removed, the dial arm will rotate, will unwind, in the direction of the blue arrow about 1.5 to 1.75 turns.



Remove the 3 screws (white arrows in #15) holding the dial stop plate to the dial case and lift the stop plate out of the dial case, #16, and count the turns as the dial spring unwinds
With the dial plate removed, make note of the dial pulse brake mounted position (white circle), the dial pulse pawl arm and the dial main spring arm (now unwound – red dot), #17

Turn the dial over and note that the shunt post with the spring unwound is now 180 degrees (red arrow) from its tensioned and stopped position (green arrow), #18

Remove the nut, shunt post and washer from the main spring shaft, #19 (note, the shunt post can only be put on two ways, the correct way or 180 degrees off, the wrong way)

Turn the dial over and move the pulse pawl arm in the direction of the red arrow so the ratchet arm moves in the direction of the green arrow and clears the teeth of the main spring gear, be to the left of the blue line across the gear teeth, #20



With the ratchet arm clear of the teeth, lift the main spring gear and shaft (one piece) up and out of the dial case main spring tunnel, #21

Unhook the spring from the dial case hole (white arrow) and lift it and the silvery colored thrust washer on top of the brass colored main spring shaft tunnel out of the dial, #22

Remove the 2 screws holding the gear train bridge to the case and carefully lift the bridge off of the gears, #23

Lift the governor gear out of the dial case, #24



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[TelePlay]

5H dial disassembly, continued . . .

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Lift the governor out of the raceway (don't lose the 2 small thrust washers, one on each side of the governor axle), #25

Remove the two screws holding the pulse pawl brake in place and lift it out of the dial case, #26

Remove the axle holding the pulse pawl in place and remove the pulse pawl from the dial case, #27. It will take a bit of careful manipulation to get the pulse pawl out of the case (green circle) once the pawl axle (green arrow) is removed.



The dial is now completely disassembled, ready for cleaning and lubrication when putting it back together. It goes back together in the reverse order that it was taken apart.
After assembly, this dial tested at 10.1 PPS without governor adjustment.

Notes:

1) When putting the pulse brake back in, note the holes are elongated to allow for adjustment of the brake. The brake is intended to keep the pulse pawl arm (flat metal arm with the black rubber tip) from slapping back when dialing. If allowed to slap back without the brake, the break/make pulse will be electrically very noisy due to the pulse springs flapping against each other. The brake created a single, clean break/make pulse and reduces the metal to metal clicking noises caused by the pulse ratchet arm hitting the stubs on the main spring gear when dialing. The 2 screws holding the pulse brake will have to be loosened a bit after the dial is assembled to set the brake in its proper place to insure a clean break/make pulse and reduce dial noise.

2) Make sure the black main gear shunt post on the main spring shaft is in the same position as it was before taken apart (green arrows in images #14 and #15), with the dial stop arm against the stop plate stub (can only be put on two ways due to the flat oval hole in the main spring gear).

3) With the main spring bottom ear hooked into the dial case spring hole and the thrust washer on top of the post (or on the main spring gear shaft), put the main spring gear shaft into the case tunnel and place it on top of the main spring to that the stop arm is in the same position it was when the spring was allowed to unwind during disassembly, image #17) and then put 1.5 turns into the spring before installing the stop plate. Once the stop plate is back on, the dial arm will stop against the stop plate stub with the 1.5 turns of tension put into the spring during assembly and the black shunting post will be next to the case dial spring hole, image #14 green arrow.

4) When putting the switch pile back on, turn the dial a bit so that the black shunt post is out of the way of the leaf springs, so the shunt springs on the pile do not sit on top of the shunt post when screwing it back down. Once the pile is screwed down, the dial can be released and the black shunt post should go to its normal stop point and open the shunt leaves.

5) Turn it over, put the number plate and finger wheel on and it's done and ready for a speed check.
Once assembled, the dial speed can be checked with a Sage 930A or Audacity and adjust the governor and/or break/make ratio if necessary. I've found that most slow dials go back up to factory nominal 10 +/- 0.3 PPS dialing speed without adjustment once they have been cleaned and properly lubricated. If the dial governor was adjusted in the field to "fix" a slow dial, once cleaned the dial may run fast and will require adjustment.

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[Contempra]

Thank you very much You save me lot of time ... Finally , I was wrong in two or three places , but I will find where eventually . I took everything (copied the texts and the photos and I put everything in a Microsoft Word file for later. Thank you for your great patience with a beginner in this dial model. I have no problem for the other dials that have become common and easy to work with. But that wasn't always the case, I had to start somewhere.

[Erin Tyres]

Thank you, I just serviced my 5H dial using these instructions.

Removing the number plate retainer in step 7 was scary. It was very tight and I really did not want to pry with a screwdriver against the enamel number plate.  But it came off eventually.

When lubricating the dial, do not put any oil on the governor, not even on the pivots!  As I began to reassemble, it was obviously clear that the governor was not spinning well; it was like the entire assembly was soaked in honey.  So I wiped off the governor pivots, the two associated holes, and the two associated washers.  That made all the difference; it ran fine after that.

Once again, the lesson is that lightly oiling the governor pivots using high quality clock oil will screw everything up.

The paper dust gasket was very tricky.  I don't have any good advice, except that it is necessary to turn the dial to get it off.

[TelePlay]

Glad the post helped.

Dial disassembly, cleaning and lubrication during assembly is a learning curve. The more you do, the easier it gets.

And, each dial is unique in that it may present a surprise ot two.

The dust cover does require moving the dial stop away from the post as the cover is lifted and turned during removal. That process by itself is impossible to describe in 1,000 words or less.

The number ring retainer is spring loaded and I have found using a flat plastic or wood tool to lift (against the porcelain number ring) at each of the 3 springs, a little bit one after the other will pop it up and off in 3 or 4 "lifts" at each spring.

As for the governor, I do put a small amount of oil on each of the axle bearing points but not on the wing pivots. The governor does a lot of spinning and to leave it as dry metal on metal would lead to wear. Oiling the bearing points with watch oil should not affect the operation of the governor when on use.

We're you surprised at how easy it was to do? My first dial took more than an hour and I can now do a dial in less than 10 minutes.

Have you found the topic on how to test and, if necessary, adjust the dial speed? If not, search the forum for "audacity" to find quite a few topics.

[Contempra]

When lubricating the dial, do not put any oil on the governor, not even on the pivots!  As I began to reassemble, it was obviously clear that the governor was not spinning well; it was like the entire assembly was soaked in honey.  So I wiped off the governor pivots, the two associated holes, and the two associated washers.  That made all the difference; it ran fine after that.

I have many phones with a 5H dial but now I lube each pivots of the governor . The first time i followed the same instruction mentioned here, the governor never worked properly . so , the last 4 I lubricated , I always put a tiny drop of oil on both governor pivots . That solved the problem. So, next time, don't hesitate to put a tiny drop of oil on them( pivots ) .

[Erin Tyres]

I do put a small amount of oil on each of the axle bearing points but not on the wing pivots.

I always put a tiny drop of oil on both governor pivots .

The oil that I put on the governor's axle bearing points made the dial super slow.  But since it works for both of you, I will try it next time.  Perhaps I should use a needle or fine wire to only put the tiniest drop on each axle.

Have you found the topic on how to test and, if necessary, adjust the dial speed?

I read about Audacity, but I used an oscilloscope to test the dial's speed.  I did not test the bare dial, I connected the scope to the reassembled phone.  I measured 9 pulses in 924 milliseconds, which is close enough that I do not have to change anything.

[countryman]

I'm not familiar with the 5H dial, but often noticed on other types that they got slow and sticky after the original lubricant deteriorated or was soaked with dust and grime. Oil/grime on the actual brake pads of the governor can also slow them down.
I have used auto brake and parts cleaner on several dials with good success. It quickly removes grime and old sticky lubricants. It evaporates quickly and is safe on most relevant materials.

Then use tiny amounts of clock or sewing machine oil as described.

[TelePlay]

An oscilloscope works fine. Most don't have one. Your dial speed, 9.74 PPS, is good.