151AL with a 5H Dial

[djtownsend]

All,

I'm working on a 151AL candlestick phone w/ a 5H dial.  I get a dial tone through my 634 subset.  I use a Gizmo tone to pulse converter and when I dial, only when I dial 1 will give me the tone I'm looking for.  All other numbers that I dial just give me back my dial tone.  I tried different 5H dials with the same result.  Does anyone have a picture of how to wire my 5H dial in the candlestick phone?  Also, maybe my wiring in the switchhook inside the phone is wired incorrectly.  The switchhook I'm using has 4 screws to attach wires but I'm not thinking that is the problem since the switchhook works when I hang up the receiver.  Not sure though.

I'm sure someone out there has put a 5H dial on a WE candlestick phone.  This is my first and am lost in what to change.  I did read on here that there should be a jumper between R and Y which I did.  Good news is that tonight was the first time I hooked my phone to my subset and got a dial tone.  Bad news is the dial is not working as expected.

I would appreciate any help that anyone can provide.  I've learned a lot from this forum, most recently on my 302 ringers so I'm hoping to get some help here.

Thanks in advance.

Dan

[djtownsend]

One point I see that I did is that on the dial if I have the yellow wire on BB and the BB wire on Y, I get a dial tone.  If I hook them up like they should be, I get no dial tone.  This is kind of why I need to see a correct picture of a wired switchhook.  Lastly, I'm not using the Blue wire.  I only have one terminal connection but my yellow subset wire reaches all the way to the switchhook where the blue wire would be attached so I attached the yellow wire directly to the switchhook.

After playing with it for a few more hours, I can't even get the 1 to dial correctly.  On the transmitter, does it matter which the black or yellow wires are connected to?  There are no markings.

HELP!!!!  As with any time I am playing with a type of phone for the first time, I'm always asking questions.  By the way, I did see the thread in the trouble shooting section about the candlestick and the 5H which is why I was playing with the wires on the dial.  I could hardly make out the BB wire because it was so faded, as are most of the other wires but I think I have them figured out now, I just have something hooked up wrong.

Dan

[djtownsend]

All,

This is weird but I was assemblying a 202 w/ the same subset and had the same problem.  I finally put in a different dial and it worked which is good.  The bad news is that I have some bad dials.  Is there a thread here somewhere on how to test/fix WE dials?  After looking at the dial for a while I get the jist of how it works but is there a way to actually test dials?  I can obviously switch these dials into and out of a working phone to see if they work or not but is there a way to test them any other way?

Repairing dials is new to me but to fix one, you have to know what is wrong with it.  Are there any dial experts out there that can give me some advice?

Thanks.

Dan

[HarrySmith]

Steve Hilz can fix it and he is very helpful. See our vendor thread:

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=4385.0

[GG]

IMHO a good way to learn to fix dials is to start with an AE three-inch dial, which is obtainable at reasonable cost. 

These are about the simplest of all dials in that all the working parts are readily visible and it's easy to see how they interrelate.  The least-obvious things about them, are the means of removing & replacing the number card retainer ring and the method of removing & replacing the governor.  On the earlier ones, the entire contact assembly is mounted on its own metal base that can be unscrewed from the main body of the dial, making it even easier to fully disassemble & reassemble the mechanism without disassembling the contact spring pile-ups. 

Disassembling & reassembling AE dials provides some general background knowledge that's useful when trying to do the same with WE dials, even though WE dials are different in almost every respect. 

One thing to keep in mind about WE dials up through 5H, is that the contacts are wired to the terminals in a manner that is not as immediately obvious as with AE, so it's highly useful to trace out the connections and draw a diagram.   WE 6A dials are a bit more visible but nonetheless, tracing connections and drawing diagrams is helpful.

Any kind of continuity tester is tremendously helpful when troubleshooting dials, to help trace out the connections and determine if a contact is dirty or misbehaving.  A flashlight battery and bulb, with two wires you can poke hither and yon, are even sufficient. 

Also when tracing WE dial connections, the expedient of slipping little piece of paper between the contacts helps isolate them for tracing with a continuity tester.