Debugging (Part 3)

I spent a lot of time debugging the third/fourth wheel engagement.  I tried

• Many different pinions
• Flipping the fourth wheel around to use the other set of contact surfaces.  This helped considerably...

But, what really did it was the thing I wanted to avoid.  Specifically, moving the fourth wheel closer to the third wheel.  Experimenting with the depthing tool -- which I now understand how to use: with force on the fourth wheel and light backpressure on the third wheel -- I determined that I needed to move about 1/16".

So, moving the wheel is a pain.  First, I needed to extract the bearings.  That was messy, and involved digging out the bearing a bit with a knife and levering it out.  After it was removed, I used a milling bit on the end of my hand drill to extend the hole upward 1/16" of an inch.  Once the bearing was back in place, I slid a wooden shim below it to anchor it.

I realize I'll have to do this for the center wheel, too.  That will be especially annoying since the center bearing goes through the front plate.  I may need a tighter shim to anchor it.

At this point, the clock runs with 11.35 oz on the fourth wheel pinion.  A smaller weight (namely 7 oz) appears to almost run it, but the clock stops occasionally.