The coil is fired thru a motor switch. It will be on the 4c switches. clean them and make sure you have enough gap. I also clean switches on O as the circuit is thru one of them.

Gottliebs are infamous for the ball hitting the underside of the apron. The ball does not sit on the kicker arm because the outhole gets elongated. There's a fix that involves using an old switch blade to hold the ball in place better.

Could also be the mech itself or the switches mentioned above.

Look in there and see if it is hitting the under side of the apron .

Check this circuit, leading into Ball Return (O).

Capture (resized).PNG

Also make sure the sprung arm on the kicker is oiled at the pivot and moving freely and has the correct spring, and has no binding crud between it and the other kicker arm, otherwise the kick will be too hard. And see if you have noticeable wear at the tip(s) on the kicker, which can get hammered and flattened out if the kicker has a megaton of miles on it. If you remove the card holder it’s easier to see if the ball is being launched too high or the kick is weak, etc.

Not one of Gottlieb's better designs. Williams and Bally outhole kicker systems are far superior

Ballys, in my experience, tend to have their kicker problems at the SM, which are a bit easier to find and clean.

This was a simple mechanical fix for 2 of my Gottliebs. The ball must rest at just the right position in the hole relative to the kicker prong tips so they can launch it at the correct angle. Same principle as hitting a baseball: hit foul balls all day, or a hit home run every time. Try this: remove the apron and ball; lift the playfield so you can bend the tip of the kickout hole switch blade up at a right angle, about 1/4" from its end. You may have to experiment with the angle and length of the bent tip. Lower the PF, power up and try it. Also observe the ball's movement with the apron removed; sometimes its blocked by the edge of the guide rail and bounces back. If so, bend and/or adjust the rail as needed for the least restricted flight path. Then try it with the apron reinstalled. Persevere. You'll get it.

The GTB design isn’t as ‘smart’ and is much more prone to having issues but once you get them (and what fires them) back up to spec they kick to the shooter reliably. The one in my Fast Draw never fails and gets the ball there quick and smooth every time. But yeah I’ve had many that needed fixin’ up where the ball was hitting the card holder.

I've owned four different Bally games, and none of them ever had an issue, other than just the normal dirt that basically all games have under the apron. Even when dirty, they kicked reliably and strong.

The Gottlieb design just has too many moving parts to it. Gottlieb did a lot of things right, and better, but score reels and outhole kickers were two that were not better.

Yup the bottom ends of the kicker are pretty bashed, I’ve been able to peen them to get closer to the original shape, ball may not be seated/centered in the kicker as it should be... kicking upward instead of forward, or to one side since the peening there is worse on one side than the other.
Whichever reel is doing false scoring, might just be a scoring playfield switch gapped to close.

Here's a good post by Dirt Flipper from a few years back on this topic: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/em-gottlieb-ball-return-not-kicking-ball-out-to-shooter-one-cause

Whats the part number for the ball return forks or kicker. Thanks Raff

On the other thread showing the heavy wear where the kicker pivots, maybe a short piece of steel tubing could be brazed or epoxied onto the bottom of the post to both negate the wear notches on the post and compensate for the enlarged hole, and take out the slop... enlarging the hole if needed to match the diameter of the tubing.

Does this diagram from the 1978 parts catalog assist?

Gottlieb Outhole Kicker (resized).png