Love Meteor strategy and have warmed-up to older Sterns in general.

Purchased this one during Allentown this past year. Had to laugh because I hadn't seen many Meteors for sale and thought I jumped on a good deal when someone advertised having a project Meteor they could bring to A-town. Once I got there and paid for it, I go inside and there are like FIVE Meteors set-up with very reasonable prices!!! Doh!

Anyway, I am now a proud owner. This game is an early production, has the flat base plates for the flippers, I think the sticker on the side of the cabinet mentions 1979.

Playfield is in very good shape, inserts are not cupped much at all, and the only wear spot is at the bottom of the bonus ladder where the rockets are. Most of that is black, so I should be able to paint it over with little problem.

This card was tucked into the game manual:

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First step for me is playfield, I am most concerned with getting the playfield looking great and taking apart all the mechs and going over them - the drop target banks are HEAVY, especially the six drops at the top.

I take LOTS of photos of everything as mounted under the playfield, off of the playfield, how the wires are soldered on, then I label the wires with notes as to their locations - then I finally unsolder everything and remove.

First, here are some photos of the project pin. The cab is rough, but I'm not too concerned with cabinets being perfect. There's a strip of wood out of the "R" in Meteor on the left-side. I may run some wood putty into it to smooth it out and then re-do the red paint - or I'll leave it alone. The red is faded no doubt and would be hard to match.

The diver board (I think it's called that?) beneath the playfield looked scary so I went ahead and ordered a new replacement. Also, the wires from the transformer have been joined to the board with wire nuts, instead of soldered so I will solder those and remove the nuts.

The only wear is there by the bonus ladder at the rockets, should be an easy touch up. The rest needs a good cleaning and black lines re-painted around all the inserts. Rubbers and plastic posts are all dry rotted. The lane guide on the right is bent way out of shape, so I'll try to re-shape it.

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Shot of the playfield mostly stripped of hardware. The top drop target area at the top has an extra post sandwiched into the center, there are seven instead of six across - is this a spot where the ball gets caught??

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Flipper mechs are very dirty and beat-up. I have the older, flat base plate - I was thinking about upgrading to the Williams flippers but I may just purchase entire Stern rebuilds and install. The rebuilds use the newer plate on "legs" so I will need to make new mounting holes or use my old mounting bracket. Is there really any difference in the two brackets?

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The wiring for the two flippers appears to be very different. The one on the right (from under playfield view) looks to have a lot more wires running to it than the one on the left. Also, there is a crazy four-way leaf switch on the right flipper that I don't think belongs......here's a comparison of the two flipper mech sides......is this correct?

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The leaf switches on the slings are toast - can I assume that I can purchase new ones based on comparing how they look? (ie: same location of tabs in rear of switch?).

I notice a tiny diode attached to these that I don't recall on later games - what number are these? and do they go bad or can I re-use them?

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Ok, all hardware is off the backside. From reading the Meteor club posts, it appears that my numbered drop targets are the "chicklet" type and thus original - while the ones with an arrowhead type top are newer replacements? Is that correct?

Also, it looks like the "1" targets have the smaller lip beneath the target, the metal piece is turned "upside down" in order to hold the target up high enough above the playfield.

The "2" targets are correct, with a longer "stem" insert, and you can see the plate mounted opposite so allow for proper target height. If they work correctly, I think I may leave them for now.

My "Meteor" drops are mixed between arrowhead and chicklet so i'll order new ones to make them uniform.

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Slingshots are two different hardware configurations. Any help as to which one is the correct one for Meteor? There is a washer at the top of the spring where the link is, not sure that is supposed to be like that?

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Removed the board from bottom of the cabinet. All the wires from the transformer were attached with twist-on wire connectors. I'll solder them and then attach the other ends - that I marked with tape as to where they go - to the new board I ordered.

I'll also have to re-pin the connectors along the bottom of the board. Are these called Molex connectors? Are there different sizes or are they all the same size?

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After removing the drops mech, I saw a Christmas card used to either shield light from the pf bulbs, or perhaps protecting any metal-to-metal contact between the metal light sockets and the back of the drop mech??

First time I'd seen up-close the tiny solenoids used to hold down drop targets (I am guessing these are used to "memorize" the drops that are down from player to player?). The leaf switches on this unit look fine, should anything be cleaned or tweaked on this particular part of the drops? I unscrewed this assembly and left it wired to the pf while I clean up the drop targets, etc.

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setzkor, thanks for all the input. I found an invaluable article comparing the Sterns to the early Ballys - I am working my way through that and should learn a lot. I did buy a brand-new rectifier board so thankfully will not have to be replacing the actual male pins, just the female molex plugs.

I had the exact same thought, just purchase the new METEOR drops in tombstone, and keep the others on hand. I do have the decals from the seller when I purchased the game, and have already scanned all of that for future reference should I need more stickers down the road.

Ben, yes, I will run something between the contacts on those leaf switches, but otherwise that unit looks to be in pretty good shape.

Does anyone "dry lube" the hinges on these drop-target units?

dasvis, TheLaw, and dothedoo:

I will admit to taking the "path of least resistance." I did want a more "reliable" board with upgraded components - and I was very careful to label all the wiring connections from the back of the board before removing them. I knew that it worked, but it looks terrible and had three heat-sinks removed from the center, and screws going into them and into the board mounting bracket?

My competency level with electronics is little to none unless following explicit instructions or putting things back exactly as removed - I am more of a mechanical/appearance fixer-upper where I can actually see what is wrong.

I purchased a new board with the "divide by 2" Meteor chip installed and also a new board allowing use of LED's - even though the older boards do work. I want this thing running smoothly once I get it all shined up!

I will also re-pin the connectors (female side), which is not quite as daunting as testing boards, soldering, etc.!!! Although soldering wires to the back of the new board looks easy enough so I'll give it a try once practicing on the old one.

Hopefully you guys will follow along as I tackle this thing, keep up the comments both good and bad - I welcome them all.

My last resto was a Taxi with no issues except mechanical/cosmetic - this is a little more involved being an older machine and harder to find parts. I have been reading this (http://techniek.flipperwinkel.nl/ballyss/rep/index1.htm) which has proven very educational and informative.

Thanks,

Nate

Thanks for that "heads up" - I think I'm going to stick with my original mounting plates and just buy the rebuild kits for the linkages and springs, etc offered by Pinball Life. Also buying new flipper bats w/shaft. My coils and everything look fine - I actually have some of the original(?) metal coil sleeves that look in very good shape.

On the flip-side, how much longer does it run after I put everything back together?? I'd rather replace now, these parts were not the best quality to start with, and in no way were they expected to last this long!!

I'm very "old school" with everything else - in no way do I subscribe to the "newer is better" idea, that's why I still have tape cassettes, a VCR, turntable, and tube tv!!!!

-Nate

Used a rainy, dreary day to get the white painted in. Here's before and after.

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Was able to repair the slingshot arms using replacements from Pinball Life. Also got a new armature with linkage for both. I think they will work! I purchased a coil to replace one of the originals, the plastic back cracked on one corner on the other original coil. However, why is the new coil looking so much thinner than the other original one??

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Hand painting the orange areas because there is way too much to trace and cut to make an effective stencil, I also do not have an airbrush. Using Creatix airbrush paint, it's not hard to get an even coat w/o brushstrokes once you have enough paint layers brushed in. Time consuming and tedious - you can see the difference around the Steve Kirk signature - there was a LOT of ground in dirt. I have a few coats to go on this side before it looks smoother - the other side is almost finished and looking good, waxing the pf afterwards will add luster to the paint.

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Yes, I've done decals before - considering doing that if I can't free-hand my way into the middle - that side has some more coats of paint to go yet.

Thanks for the input!!

Thanks Coyote, life has gotten in the way of this resto-thread.................it is coming along and I have some photos to post. Turns out the paint job on the pf is VERY unstable, so every time I put down some masking, taking it off would remove some paint!!! Doh!

Not having access to clear-coating can have it's drawbacks. But, hopefully a coat of wax will help seal the paint in when I prepare to put on the mylar.......

Thanks for your response about the "extra" post - appreciate the input.

Stay tuned..............sorry for the long delays!!!

Shot of the center of pf, first two "ladder" scoring areas to right are painted in with black - compare to left-most area. This entire area has since been finished.

Also removed mylar protectors from around the pop bumper and the slings - no paint loss, just a lot of residue to remove with flour and rubbing alcohol.

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Shot of the Meteor drop-target area of the pf, before and after touch-up. Some of the paint-loss to the background in the upper right area was from the masking used to paint the arrows, paint was coming up with the masking tape.......

I decided to forget adding the yellow line back into the circle design where it was worn out and just painted all the areas with black. I also masked off the arrows and repainted those. Used some purple and blue also to fill-in where it was worn around these inserts........

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Working on touching up the rockets area on my computer paint program - I've already painted in the black areas and touched-up the rockets, am now working on the tails of flame - that is the worst area of wear.

Left-hand side is finished, working on the other two.

Rather than attempt to free-hand the paint job, I'm going to print water-slide decals on white backed decal paper. These will slide directly over the flames - I may have to slightly shade the white areas so they blend in better with the entire "years of dirt and fade" overall color scheme.

I've also toned-down the original yellow and red/orange colors to better match their surroundings.

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Thanks phototamer - I know, the createx paints are so thin, it takes multiple coats, only drawback is that you end up with a slight "lip" around the painted areas (more so when you mask an area off).

Are you masking off the letters? Wow, yep, the free-hand painters are a patient bunch!!!

Starting to replace some pf hardware beneath the playfield. Most of the switches are toast. This fits beneath the pop-bumper.

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Moving at a snail's pace, finally got the colors close to the originals on the pf. I shot close-up of the rockets and touched them up in photo editing program and re-sized to fit the originals. I used the white backed slide decal instead of the clear so I can use the white - which doesn't register as a printable color.

Hopefully I'll actually get them applied in the next couple of days.

Thanks to everyone's patience with this thread, it got really de-railed this year due to non-pinball issues.

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Finally go the water-slide decals on for the rockets. I cut close to the outer edge but being sure to leave some black so the decal would blend in better with the background. These decals were the largest I had worked with and proved challenging to get onto the pf at just the right angle to directly cover the graphic that was there originally.
One mistake - I didn't paint over some bondo filler that I used on the right-most rocket trail where the paint had worn down all the way to the wood below. the Bondo is a clay-red color and shows through just a tad on the decal. You can see anything that is a bit dark that I attempted to cover with the white decal - the decal was little too thin to really hide dark colors, so be smart and cover with white paint ahead of time.
I used white decals instead of clear because I knew I couldn't print the white color and would just use the background white.
Also ran some black paint along the edge of the decals to hide any seams - applied a coat of wax - and looks acdeptable!!!

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Yes, I only had to do the rocket trails - thankfully, after they fully dried, the middle section (where it is a bit darker) lightened up so it looks better.

Around the pop-bumper shouldn't be too bad - shoot a pic and print it to clear decal paper and you should be good to go - keep in mind that you may want to do sections where the wear exists instead of the entire ring at once - these water-slide decals can be hard-to-handle the bigger they are.

Again, moving at a snail's pace on the resto. I had a mylar fiasco that required me to remove what I put down and re-touch the playfield. It's ready for my second attempt - I think my downfall was using a piece of mylar that was too wide and pre-flattened. This time I'm using a narrower piece and leaving it rolled-up, unrolling as I apply.

For some reason, the center area, once I got past the first bank of drops area decided to start creasing up - directly center, multiple areas - not sure why except that this was a wider piece than I usually use, and I had it flattened before applying.

I've done this before, so this is the only exclamation I can come up with................

Ok, I'm still here. Been hot n' humid so took the occasion to flatten all of my playfield plastics. I just took two sheets of glass and clamped them down with some, um, clamps - and let the sun shine on. Did a good job - took about two days.

Getting up the nerve for the second attempt at mylar - hopefully finished very soon - stay tuned for fortune or failure!!!!

I turn the plastics face-down so I don't think UV fade would be an issue.

Using the oven - is that microwave???