Welcome to the club. I think I've seen those red posts come up before either in the seeking-parts-thread here or on everyone's favorite auction site. The tape and shims are likely because they've shrunk slightly over time and no longer fit snugly in their holes.

One of the neat features of this game is that if you can bump the middle, purple bumper it will return one completed ball from the trough to the player by dropping it into the ball lift trough. If you look closely you can see that the bottom of the ball trough is split into two sections. The whole bottom slides out of the way at the start of the game but the smaller section slides out of the way when the purple bumper is hit.

Dan previously found me offline I think through my Champion web page (https://www.funwithpinball.com/resources/1939-Bally-Champion) which is a longer version of the topic (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/1939-bally-champion) I started here a couple of years ago.

Now I'm curious how many others are still out there.

/Mark

The playfield glass on my Champion is plate glass with sharp edges. I don't know if it's original. If yours is plate glass too beware that plate glass can easily break in to life threatening shards of glass. A new sheet of tempered glass might be in order.

The playfield may be screwed down from the top, but otherwise it should lift up from the game like the hood of a car. Champion has a door on the right side near the back. If you remove that door the bottom board should slide out for better access.