I got this machine from a friend who wasn't looking for this level of project. I've already cleaned and cleared the playfield (not the best of jobs, but it's smooth and passes the 5 foot test) and am now putting things back together. The game didn't work when I got it and he got it from a storage situation, so if I made anything worse, I wouldn't even know at this point.

So, the PF is cleared and back in the cab and everything I unsoldered to have a flat surface has been soldered back in place. The only burnt fuse was the 6V, 15A one. Replaced that with the closest thing available, which was what had been in there before and was blown (32V, 15A). The right slingshot coil locked on upon power up and manually activating the lock relay. Tap the bottom of the cab (cool feature) and see that one of the slingshot switches are touching, but not at the contacts. Fix that and that no longer locks on. I have a new relay coming, but will manually activate for now to identify trouble spots.

When the game is powered up there are two things I am currently noticing. The first is the 10,000 stepper is constantly running. The second thing is I am still hearing the hum of a locked coil. I ID that coil and tap the game off. The 10k stepper gear thing isn't spinning freely at all. Take that apart, clean it, reassemble and now it's acting proper. Power the game up, and it still spins and spins. I don't let it do this for more than a few seconds so the locked coil doesn't fry, but I have powered up a few times, so it should have found home by now. It's a continuous stepper, so no switch. Still a mystery, but likely related to something else at this point.

Now, the real question I have at this point is the "Selection Unit" stepper under the back left section of the playfield. It's locked on and I can't figure out why. It has a single coil and a switch on one side and the expected grid of wires on the other side. It's locked on, but with a name like "Selection Unit" I have no idea what it's related to. There are no schematics for this game that I found, but a Ten Spot schematic (http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/2517/TenSpotSchematic.pdf) shows it doing to several "1 to 10 lite relay" tags. Curious if mine does the same. Either way, anyone have any ideas why it would be locked on?

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See that wire in the bottom center of the pic? Yeah, it's supposed to go to the bottom of the relay, as you can see on the 100k unit to the right. Fixing that seems to have fixed the 10k stepper going non-stop.

Now to find out what is causing the "Selection Unit" to lock on. I found a relay locking on. The Advance #2 relay fires up whenever the game is turned on. I unsoldered the coil and powered up the game and the Selection Unit does not lock up. But, I'm looking at the Advance targets (they look like pop bumpers, but are a switch only, no metal ring) I'm not seeing any closed switches. However, the relay for #1 does not ohm out the same that #2 does. One of them was ~42ohms and the other was ~13 ohms. Not 100% sure that is accurate for either because I think the batteries are starting to go on the DMM and it does funny stuff when that happens. Anyone have an M-31-1700 coils they want to measure for me?

I found a switch stuck closed on a target along the right side, which is what had locked on the relay, which locked on the Selection Unit stepper coil. Now I power the game on and the reset motor spins over an over and the 10k stepper in the head is back to cycling non-stop. Researching now, but lost on this yet again.

Also, you are supposed to be able to turn the game on by pressing the left flipper button. That doesn't happen on mine. If I press the lock relay flap with a tool it turns on and stays on, but I obviously don't want this to be the way things work. Any advice here would help.

Flattening plastics with a heat gun and a few sheets of glass.

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Well what do ya know, I put the 1959 nickel (fitting) in that came with the game and it fired right up. Still have a closed switch causing a stepper to lock up, but that's a pretty nice piece of info.

I will try to find the stuck switch tomorrow and see how far the nickel gets me then.

Got a schematic and took it to get scanned yesterday. IPDB is based out of Houston and has been affected, but I will submit this to them once things are a little more calm.

Golden Bells Schematic.pdf

A scan would be great after you get verified. I did it a while ago and only remover it being fairly simple to do.

I finished a major 1977 Bally Lost World repair recently, so my two EM projects are about to go back to the top of the repair list.