Howard Miller Grandfather clock Chimes and strikes two minutes early

by Crystal Hill
(Hutchinson, Kansas)

I have a Howard Miller grandfather clock. I have had it for 7 years. We had it cleaned and oiled 1.5 years ago by a independent repair man I wasn't super impressed with, but it seemed to work fine afterward.

We usually run it on silent mode. The other day we decided to turn on the chimes and strike and we realized it wasn't working right at all. But we have no local clock repair. I messed around with it a bit and got it to chime and strike at regular times, .25 h, .5 h, .75 hour and on the hour.

It seems to match the hour now (which it wasn't at first) but the problem I'm having is that it chimes and strikes two minutes too soon. And sometimes the strikes are very slow and sometimes it misses some of the strikes.

The chimes seems to play ok but begin to play a couple of minutes too soon. I have no idea how to fix this issue. Any ideas? It seems to keep good time although after it was taken apart for the cleaning and oiling, it has taken a few pendulum adjustments to keep it from running slow, but that seems to be fine now.

Since we have it on silent mode most of the time, I have no idea how long it has not been working properly. I just noticed it about 3 weeks ago.