Well After working on and off for 6 months on this dumpster special and putting in 150 hours it came back to life with a vengeance as it is now the fast and the furious.

Overall the game plays extremely well, is off the charts on the fun factor, and looks pretty darn good too IMO!

Everything Works as it should 100%!

It's not a collectors piece but it is a very nice players game.

I'll start off with a few before pictures, don't worry I have plenty more.

The discussion is now open.........

Ken

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In this pic you can see the old Pop Bumpers have been removed and New Kickout Hole inserts replaced the broken ones. So the transformation begins.

The Kickout Hole inserts were originally nailed in with 4 nails from the factory from the backside of the Playfield but I replaced the nails with wood screws so next time a replacement will be easy.

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Here you get a better view.

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Here you get a view of the new flipper bushing through the Playfield.

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Good closeup of how bad the Pop Bumper Mylar was. It had bubbled up on the edges as you can see from the photo.

Williams used the glue down style so to take this up I used a can of upside down air in a can that works as a freeze spray and the results were great. Just take your time with it gently pulling the Mylar up with your fingers as you spray.

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Like to see before and after, really shows what people can accomplish with some effort and skill.

Soon enough Pin-it, just getting some momentum going now.

Here is a closeup of the Playfield paint damage between the Flippers. It is typical of Flipper Drag due to both Flipper bushings being broken, but you get a nice closeup of the new ones sticking up from the bottom.

I have seen quite a few Gulfstreams with these typical wear spots.

Also notice the 100 Point Rollover Button by where the Flippers go, it had to be replaced with a good used one as the other was shot, looks nice now.

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Now post the money shot!

-Jeff

Sorry Jeff, not yet, I'm still holding out!

You have seen the Playfield damage for the most part now time for the Cabinet.

The photo of the inside show where the Coin box should sit. As you can see if I installed the Coin box in the machine it would quickly be sitting on the floor.

Time to replace the bottom and this was a first for me.

To get the bottom out I used a hammer and a wood chisel for the most part. To get most of it out bashing from the inside out with the hammer did the trick with no collateral damage then use the wood chisel and nail puller in some spots if needed.

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OK.

Now the new bottom gets install and painted on the bottom only. I did not intend to paint it at all except that my hole saw I used to make the air vents in the bottom had a bent pilot drill bit which I did not know at the time and make the hole saw wobble on the first cut damaging the wood..... so I had to use wood filler and paint to fix which came out very nice.

I did not bother to paint on the inside as I wanted it to have an original feel to it even though the paper wood (1/8" thick?) as I call it that was used by the factory was replaced by a finished piece (not CDX) of 1/2" real wood. The 4x8 piece I bought ran about $30.00 and is enough to do 2 pinball machine bottoms. P.S. I donated the other half to my cats for their shelf to sleep on as I do not currently have another project that needs a bottom.

Note: When/if I have to do this again I will go with the equivalent of a 1/4" board as the 1/2" is way overkill, cost will be cheaper, and not needed, but it is super strong! I just used a regular Skillsaw to make the cut and used an enamel base white paint that was brushed on.

Other note: The Cabinet paint itself is in decent shape but could use some touch up here and there but nothing has been done with it to date and most likely will not unless the wife takes it upon herself to do it as she is the main artist around here.

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I wouldn't relate the playfield condition to a dumpster special, although seeing the cabinet condition I understand your label. But the playfield condition is what justifies restoring this game.

Back East and Midwest I would say yes but in Idaho the overall poor condition of this machine was the kiss of death as only a handful of folks even deal with these machines here and play them to death.

What's the backglass like?

OK. I'll give up some Backglass pics. Unfortunately I have seen plenty of Gulfstreams with good glass, this is not one of them. I will be looking for a new ink one in the future whenever someones decides to make them and waiting is not a problem as it works fine for now and I will most likely touch it up this Spring and will post a new thread for this if I follow through with the project. As you see the Backglass in the pics is the way it is currently.

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Taking the Mech board is not as bad as you think

Williams boards easy to take out compared to Gottlieb because Williams uses Jones Plugs for ALL the connections and Gottlieb decided not to for whatever reason but I'm guessing cost.

Now a pick of the outside of the Coin door. It was not in bad shape so it just needed cleaning and polishing along with the Bezel coin inserts install, coin trip wires reset. In this picture work has already been done to the shooter Bezel and assembly rebuilt new springs and all. You can also see the new legs and felt protectors for them as the old legs were past the point of good and rust pitted OK legs does not do it for me.

Also in another pic you see a Micro Switch with 2 broken off lugs that attaches on a bracket next to the Coin Door. It cuts off power to the Coin door when you open it. I repaired it by soldering on 2 new lugs as I figures that the wiring was cut for it so why not use it if it works. I believe this may have been an after market add on by an Operator as I have not seen any other Gulfstreams with this item.

So how many ways do you want to turn on/off this machine? This one has an on/off toggle switch in the bottom of the Cabinet, a slam switch in the bottom cabinet, the Micro switch on the Coin door, and the left Flipper button to turn on the G.I. lights!

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A finished side view look, yes I'm still holding out on more final photos.

Mean Green really does wonders for cleaning the Cabinet and Head paint without taking off the paint. Those new legs and polished side rails look pretty darn good too IMO!

I took apart the Flipper Buttons and gave them a good clean as well. It has new leg bolts and levelers as well.

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A lot to cover with this one picture as it is the finished product of the inside of the Cabinet by the Coin door.

First off the Flipper switches were all hand built by me as I had originally bought the pre-made ones from Marcos but they did not work right with this machine so I took them apart and rebuilt both of them, so be prepared to do some work including relocating the mounting holes for the switches. So much for thinking oh yea, just pop them in and I'm done!

The leg plates that the leg bolts go into are all new as the old ones had a couple stripped ones, so since I had to replace 2 why not do them all and be done with as I did not want to run the risk of stripping the new bolts and they are cheap to buy from PBR. When I replace these I use 2 wood screws as the factory used nails and you don't want to be hammering on these 40+ year old leg corners and they are easy to replace down the road.

Also the two Aluminum plates that cover the front leg plates to keep kids from trying to get a free game are originally stapled and need to come off when replacing the leg bolt plates. I take out the old staples and reattach using 2 small wood screws, again, easy to remove and replace next time.

You can see 2 green ground wires coming off the Coin door and one of them is new going to the on/off toggle switch which did not have one and the other had to be repaired as it was broken and both had to be soldered. I always make sure all of my machines have a 3 prong 14' PBR electrical plug/cord (new) and grounded to the minimum 3 items - Transformer, Coin Door, and on/off Switch.

It has 2 Coin Box brackets to hold the box in which one is the original on the side but the other in the middle is used with Gottieb machines and works in this application well because I did not have room on the other side to mount another original bracket because of the way the wood pieces lined up for the on/off toggle switch. I like this application as it holds the Coin Box in perfect alignment with the coin shoots insuring that shaking of the machine will not cause the box to move and coins to miss the coin slot of the box.

The Chime box had a complete Williams rebuild kit from PBR as it was in terrible shape. One chime bar had to be replaced and another damaged slightly because 2 of the 3 nylon tip chime plungers had broke off. I had to buy 3 new Chime bar plungers and Sleeves but luckily the coils were all OK. Lots of metal shavings around the Chime box area from the damage. Also not shown in this picture is that the I believe the copper or brass pins that hold the Chime Bars in place had 2 out of 3 in bad shape where it was almost worn all the way through and needed replacement. I found a replacement that works perfectly which is a regular coat hanger wire that is the same exact diameter as the originals. Just cut to length with a tin snip and get your needle nose pliers to bend the loop on the end. Looks just like the original except for the color and should last another 40+ years.

Last but not least the Cabinet where the Coin Box sits, WOW! You can actually set a Coin Cox in there now!

If this machine ever saw a route again good luck to thieves picking this machine up and dropping it hoping the Coin box will come crashing out of the bottom of the Cabinet!

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Unfortuantely I do not have a video camera yet but if I get one I will post to Youtube.

Yes, the more the merrier.

Thanks Pin-it

Ken

Here is a pic of the Transformer and where the 2 yellow wires are one one them broke their solder joint during my first test game. It was weird because I thought I had blown a fuse but when I checked the 4 rows of fuses all was well, then I spotted it. It's definitely one of the hardest solder jobs to put these wires on the Transformer lugs because it takes so much heat, time, and patience to get it to adhere even when you use a high heat gun and flux.

Another pic is of the Chime box with the 2 new cloths hanger wire chime bar hold downs as already discussed.

There is a picture of the chrome piece that is the part between the Playfield and the glass. As you can see it is badly rusted and was replaced by a good used one.

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Thanks Skybug.

Mine is super fast as all Slingshots and Kickout Holes have been cleaned adjusted and all new nylon sleeves installed. This game is way faster than my Williams Space Odyssey and it is fast.

Hey Chris! Yep had some fun putting this one together so maybe this will give you some inspiration to get yours done

If I do not find a new Backglass before end of Summer...yes. I will document it as well. I have not done a restore yet but know how if that makes sense. I have a can of Krylon Triple Thick on standby.

This next picture you can see the Score Motor and how clean it is after I got may hands on it. 91% alcohol and a lot of cotton swabs and some paper towels goes a long way. The Score Motor itself was very Dirty but had no broken switches so I just had to clean and adjust as necessary. I do not lube the nylon cams as it is not required. Metal to Metal is the only time you should lube according to Clays guide/dvd.

The picture of the underside of the Playfield shows the massive Relay Bank that makes this Playfield weigh a ton. I honestly think it is twice as heavy as my Gottlieb 4 Square Playfield. The Relay Bank itself had no broken switches but was all switches were cleaned ( yes all). Interesting thing about the Relay Bank was it was actually falling off. It had a missing nut (only 4 hold it to the Playfield), the rest were way loose, and all the rubber mounting bushing were shot and had to be replaced.

Note: Lowe's or Home Depot is a good source for rubber bushings, wood screws, nylon washers, cotter pins, and E-clips. Sometimes I have to go there just to pick up $2.00 worth of merchandise.

If you look at where the Bridge Rectifier is you will see a bright yellow and red wire connecting it on the left side. These 2 wires had to be replaced and soldered in because the others were crushed somehow with internal damage to the wires itself.

Now look at the Flipper area. The game received new original red flipper bats from Marcos (not in pic), from PBR we have all new flipper linkage, nylon bushings, EOS Switches. along with new stock coils, so everything.

I only had to replace 4 lamp sockets under the Playfield and 4 in the Head for a total of 8 so I got off easy. My Gottlieb 4 Square needed 45!

The last picture is an example of a few broken wires in different areas I had to deal with. I put the word out on this particular one to another fellow pinhead who gave me confirmation of where the wires should go. Also, when I end up wire broken wires at lamp sockets my general rule is to replace the socket with a new one as I am already there and it gives piece of mind I won't be going back there again anytime soon. Experience tells me that being too frugal can bite you in the rear!

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After Clear coating I would have my wife do the color match, touch up with a brush with different colors of acrylic paint, and that is about really all you need and can do with my Backglass.

_{Post edited by EM-PINMAN : duplicate}

As far as Playfield Plastics I had 2 broken ones which were replaced with good used ones clear from Canada along with a Back Metal Cover, Rollover button, a Pop Bumper cap, Coin Inserts, The upper Playfield apron, and a few other incidentals that escape me for the moment.

Thank You Chaz for the parts! Thank Goodness you had that spare parts machine!

Also some pictures of my old Playfield apron that was replaced with a freshly painted one. The Ball Gate and Ball Rubber Stop had a good time in the tumbler and came out very shiny, but that was after these photos were taken.

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Thanks again Prmailers for your confirmation on that wiring. On this project I did not need repair how to help, but a couple confirmations to make sure I put things in the proper place from folks certainly helped.

Thanks Jeff,

Man I tell you, it takes a long time to write this stuff all out and reduce a ton of pictures so I can load them on Pinside.

If a moderator is listening maybe pass along a message to Robin that we need automatic picture reduction like Ebay has for Pinside.

and a big Thank You!

Well this was an interesting one. These are pictures from the left side Sling Shot Coil.

The two pictures you see are the after shots of the repair finished.

So what happened? Basically the Coil Stop attached to the Bracket broke away from it and the factory rivet that held it in place blew out from the top of the bracket. Not sure what would cause this but a couple wires were also broken off as well and had to be re-soldered.

As far as the Coil Stop I decided I would do an experiment because I was not sure if PBR sells replacement coils stops for these brackets (I was betting no) but I know they sell the Flipper ones which would not work as I have one. What I did was hard to do but using a couple hemostats I was able to reset the original Coil Stop which was fine flush with the bracket and the solder it (lots of solder/heat) to the bracket from the hole in the top. It took me 3 times to finally get it right as the Coil Stop kept moving and not sitting flush with the bracket as this was mandatory if this was to work.

Soldering the coil stop to the bracket requires as much heat as soldering a wire to the lug of a Transformer but also requires more time with the iron because you have to heat the back of the Coil stop as well. This was truly a pain in the AS.....I was saying....

The theory is that if the Coil Stop is sitting flat against the bracket like it was from the factory then the bracket itself should take the vibration from the Plunger hitting it while the soldered Coil Stop remains held in place and should not crack the solder joint. So far after a dozen games all is well but only time will tell.

Other good news is that I was able to pick up a good used one so if this one blows apart again I will simply chuck it and install the replacement, bracket and all. No worries.

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Thanks Jeff, already have one on standby just in case.

The Plunger rod slides against this inside the coil.

The Pop bumpers and Flippers got new ones also.

Now for some pics of the inside of the cabinet with the new bottom.

You get to see everything put back in the Cabinet, clean/adjusted/repaired Motor Board and all. The only coil that had to be replaced in the bottom Cabinet was the orange one on a Coin Relay in the far left of pic that I bought from Marcos as it was a couple bucks cheaper than PBR.

The next pic has a nice full bottom view inside the Cabinet of the new wood bottom. When I took out the old wood out from the bottom of the Cabinet the triangle shaped wood blocks that help secure the bottom to the sides of the cabinet were all reusable so I simply used carpenters wood glue and put them back in their perspective areas they originally were and some just stayed put and never came off to begin with so I just added glue. It should be noted as well that I used small Brad nails to secure the new bottom in once I ran a nice bead of glue everywhere on the bottom to secure it firmly on all points of contact.

You can also see where the Head sits on the wood frame box on top of the Cabinet that has a nice coat of fresh gloss black straight out of the can!

The last pic you can see the Coin Box area with the new wood in detail. I custom cut the block where the on/off toggle switch plate screws into and the longer piece of wood opposite side that the Coin Box adjustment slider screws into as well.

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Alright, I know you guys want to start seeing the meat & potatoes pictures right about now so time for more Playfield pictures that are getting closer to the final product.

WOW! Look how clean that upper Playfield looks! Both upper and lower Aprons were removed for cleaning along with any brackets, etc. to get under everything to get it shiny. This was achived with Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, 91% rubbing alcohol, Novus 2 and clothes, and 3/4 of a box of cotton swabs without any loss of original ink on this Playfield, or any I have done to date, so yes it is safe.

Notice how white the white areas of the Playfield are compared to what they were. All the colors in general now pop and this is before any wax! Touch ups have been done if you look close on all of the black inserts and Pop Bumper ring areas but will blend in nicely once the new Mylars are installed and the Playfield waxed. Also my wife touched up the green around the beach ball which blended nicely as it is hard to tell. Nice clean yellow targets to boot.

You can see that the purple on the Playfield has faded comparing it to the original color where the Posts go, but not much you can do with that and will not matter once the Posts are back on to cover it up as the Playfield is as polished as it will get.

The 2nd picture shows the same things done with the top area in the previous picture. Remember the scrapes/missing ink in the teal blue and the black line that was gone in a couple places? I repaired the thin black line with a very fine point Sharpie and all other fatter black areas I use an acrylic fine tip paint pen you can but at any crafts store. All the other colors are done by my wife who is an artist and knows how to mix/match colors very well so don't ask me how she does it, I'm just glad she does!

Those nice new red Flipper bats sure look good too!

Back tracking a little this 3rd photo shows the left Inlane ball Guide that was shot and replaced with a good used one. It looked like someone purposely mangled this with a pair of pliers for whatever stupid reason. Work these out a little at a time using a pair of small dykes or needle nose pliers and simply get the new one and add a little wood glue to the bottoms and push in the posts into the Playfield and it's a done deal.

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Getting really close now!

Look at that Playfield all clean, touch ups done, with all new Pop Bumpers installed!

But look at the freshly painted upper Apron and Playfield wood rails and how they pop with the new paint. The good condition freshly painted Upper Apron came that way from Chaz up in Canada. What a difference compared to the old one! The wood rails I painted myself using a 12 oz can of Krylon Outdoor Spaces Satin Finish 2922 Watermelon in which the Upper Apron was painted with the same.

Be careful when you paint the wood rails as I sprayed mine in place with 2-3 coats, masked off where needed with painters blue tape, and covered the immediate area with paper and old tee shirts to prevent over spray however I recommend covering anything that you are not immediately spraying as this stuff floats and goes everywhere you don't want it to go! I ended up doing a 2nd coat of Novus 2 on the Playfield just to get up over spray specks that I could not even see but the cloth found them, no wonder the Playfield looks so good!

That middle Tic-Tac-Toe number box sure looks really good after the paint touch up as well IMO

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OK guys, this one is for the money shot!

What you have all been waiting for, the final photos. drum roll please.....................

Note: All Playfield plastic White Lane Guides are new and Red Posts were only cleaned, but look new. Obviously new Playfield Rubbers and a Ball were added along with 3 coats of Johnson Wax.

Currently I am working on a 1971 Williams Stardust restoration which is pretty involved mainly because it is Multiplayer, but not any worse or better than Gulfstream was, except for the Backglass.

Thanks for looking and all the comments, any questions on how I did anything just ask and I will try to explain as best as I can.

Talk to ya soon!

Ken

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