Dial Test Indictor Sticky

[ELR LVR]

This is for guys who may have been shy about tearing apart and cleaning your indicator.
So I really like my Federal Dial indicators due to the Yellow face, which my eyes see well
And the one with the Large Face I like more, the older I get lol
But the large face model - the toothed clutch would give way with hardly any amount of pressure on the tip
And I have this small face one that the clutch feels perfect on (has enough spring pressure)
So after having done umptten amount of trigger jobs, like a watchmaker working on a Rolex
I thought these couldn't be any more difficult and decided to tackle taking these apart and either see why the small face model is very sticky inside...
....or see if its arm would interchange with the large face model
-----------
Making one decent useable indicator from the two
it wasn't as bad as I thought
The Large face model had some sticky residue inside which was causing drag
So I cleaned it with some solvent and took the arm from the small face and installed with into the large face
---it interchanged perfectly
And now works smoothly,
Just showing what they look like inside so you guys can see what you're getting into if you want to clean yours also.

 

[ELR LVR]

Views of the internals and location of jeweled bearings
You can see the sticky residue in the last 2 pics

 

[hdskip]

Kroil will help that. I have several old Federals that got that treatment

 

[ELR LVR]

Kroil will help that. I have several old Federals that got that treatment

Thanks, good tip, I actually have some Whale Oil for such things,
thin oil and never hardens or gums up even at cold temps
they used to use it in watches for this reason.
ATF is a good substitute too as it was developed specifically to replace Whale Oil
(I have read NASA still uses whale oil since no man made product can duplicate its properties lol)

 

[hdskip]

Distinct shortage of whale oil in my shop. I do have Atf though. I use the Kroil more to free things up and then Starret machine oil. From my career in machining
. Thanks for the ATF tip.