My wooden clock has been acting tempermentally lately... It seemed to run for somewhere between 5-10 minutes before stopping. I tried relubricating it in place, but to no avail. That is bit less than one rotation of the third wheel. Upon disassembly, I found that the fourth wheel pinion roots where pretty heavily plugged with dried-up slipit, which could be the cause. If the tips of the third wheel foul slightly on the roots of the fourth pinion and there's a lot of sticky residue there, it might be a problem. I also checked to see if the teeth of the third wheel varied much in length by clamping an engineer's square so that most teeth passed by with no clearance.
It turned out that a few teeth were just a hair longer, and these would have been presented to the pinion about every five minutes. So I filed these teeth so that they, like the others, just pass the square. Then I cleaned and relubricated everything... At last check, the was still running after 10 minutes...
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