Thought you guys would get a kick out of this as there doesn't seem to be many of these machines about and it looks like to have a variant of paint on the head I have not seen yet. On with the story..
She popped up on CL several weeks ago and the seller was erratic... I'd get a single e-mail reply, try to setup a date to look it over.. and they would go radio silent. Tried using a different e-mail address... a requested day would come and go without contact. I think I took it at this point as a personal challenge to land the beast and last Thursday finally had an address and phone number.
It had spent 35+ years in a basement, before that it was in an arcade at Riverside Amusement park in MA which later became Six Flags.
Dad had been a cop and for some reason the park was getting rid of it (park was changing hands?) and he brought it home for the kids. At some point the son painted.. everything maroon. Why? Who knows. Back had never been opened, they had no clue the keys were hanging off the coin door.
First thing I did after unloading it from the Thursday was crack open a beer, pulled up a folding lawn chair and started picking the lock. 10 minutes later is was open and the glass was out and the back open. I tossed some elastics in it, about 40 light bulbs, threw away the ball the was literately covered in rust and fixed one of the flippers with a broken rollpin for evaluation.
Had bad solder joints, weak large gong solenoid, some hacks to the credit wheel, lots of dirty contacts, reset solenoid falling apart... 2 days later she was running at 100% and the paint stripper and sander came out the toolbox..
The paint on the head unit really surprised me, its now the third variant I have seen of a Grand Tour and the only one with a red triangle on the top. Very impressed with the cabinet workmanship, all the joints are tight and very crisp. Tonight going to work on making my patterns for the stencils and once that is done and verified will sand off the last of the paint and start dropping some primer on and doing some minor cabinet repair. Has a few minor scars and 3-4 holes to fill.
The playfield is actually very nice, some buffing compound really brought it back to life in the areas I tested. I'm going to strip it of most of the components and give it a good buff and wax.
Gary
Salem, OR
