In the days before everything became electronic in automobiles, the dashboard clocks operated by passing power through a set of contact points inside the clock to a relay arm that would kick back and simultaneously open the contact points and wind the clocks spring to make it run. As the clock ran the spring would gradually wind down and the relay arm would slowly move back to hthe position where the contact points would close and the whole thing would repeat, and the clock kept ticking. Usually when the clocks quit working it was because the contact points had become pitted, just like the ones in your engine.
I have not had one of these hour meters apart but being of the same era I assumed they operate the same way. When you had it open, did you see anything such as I have described?
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