Probably the last pictures for a while - got the spinners done and installed along with a few new standoffs/spools I was missing which more or less completes the playfield (except for the rails). Now it's time to wait out the winter weather so I can start on the cabinet and rails.....

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Good luck with your project! If you start a pinside thread on it, let me know as I'd love to follow it.

Aside the dimples and sling holes, I've so far not encountered any issues with the CPR. I thought I might've found a pair of holes in the upper right and upper left areas near the spinner lanes that weren't right for the EM, but when I checked my original EM playfield those holes are there, too, and unused (you can tell nothing has ever been screwed into it). I'm still not sure what they are for or why they're there. The holes are slightly bigger than the holes put down for posts with wood screws, and they're too big for the nails/brads sometimes used in areas to prevent ball traps. On the other hand, the holes are slightly smaller than the holes put in for t-nuts to be secured by a machine screw. I've got no idea. I've Google-searched looked for pix of other NR's but can't find any taken close enough that I can see clearly in that area. Do you have anything installed there on your original playfield?
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For LEDs, I used Comet: Retro SMD Warm White Frosted for GI and the backbox and color-matched 1SMD Non-Ghosting Frosted for the inserts. I love using Comet LEDs....besides them being a great product, they're local to me. If I order before noon, they usually ship the same day and with their default USPS Priority shipping, I usually get it the next day. If I'm in a super hurry, I can make the 20 minute drive over to Boulder and pick them up in person.

Indeed, it's a spool! Thanks! And I now have a couple extra since my last Marco's order....I think I'll put them in. Wonder why they were never on my original playfield.....

I do like how the LEDs look in my solid state pins. I have the same sets in my Mata Hari, Meteor, and EBD. At first I used incans in all GI and color matched LEDs for all inserts, and I really do like that incans-for-GI look, but no matter which incans I buy I'm always changing out 3-5 burned out bulbs in each machine every month. And some of those bulb locations require intricate plastics removal (especially EBD) that's always a PITA to do and even more so when the pin is in a tight lineup and you have to pull it out to get proper access. So I went with the Retro Warms White LEDs for reliability and I wound up liking the look almost as much as incans.

It's 26F in my garage but I'm having trouble staying idle on my Night Rider project. Braved the temps for 25 minutes and pulled out the main EM board from the cabinet - really looking forward to cleaning this up!! It's supposed to hit 50F a couple of days this week - if I time it right, I'll pull the transformer off and (gently) rinse the board down with warm water and get rid of the major dirt and grime. Then I can bring it into my basement workshop and work on detailing all of the little sub-assemblies and relays.

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Yep - that's what I plan to do, too! When you de-popped your board to sand it/clean it/etc, did you just take the screws out for all of the assemblies and slide it off intact, or did you desolder/de-assemble everything? I'm going to try to do the former and then re-make all of the labels for the boards.

Hey splickety_lit - Do you by chance have a clear photo of the card by the arrow of your EM playfield (I grabbed this off of the IPDB)? I have all of the other cards on my original playfield, cabinet, and backbox to reproduce but this one is missing on mine.

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Many thanks! I could probably repro from your photo above if it's too much trouble to grab a new one. Cheers!

splickety_lit - thanks again. It's not going to win any artistic awards, but I'm ok with my first repro attempt on "antique white" heavy 67lb paper/card stock:

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Well, I got to do something tonight that haven't done for a couple months now.....work on the Night Rider playfield! All that was left to do was to pretty up the rails or get replacements. For those of you who liked the work Taylor at Reese Rails did for many years (he's done several for me) but were sad to hear he closed up shop months ago, know that there is a new Pinsider "Ibis" filling in that gap. He's just getting his business going and building his library of templates, but he's off to a great start. I had him make a set for me and they just arrived today. Like Reese Rails, Ibis uses oak with custom dyes and several coats of lacquer to protect the finish from ball hits. You order them with pilot holes drilled, or just dimples, or nothing at all if you prefer to do that all yourself.

Here's a link to Ibis' thread where you can get additional info and reach out to him for your project needs:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-rails-reproduction-rails

Pictures don't really do it justice - such a cool shade of blue and it really pops. The underside pilot holes and the topside dimples all lined up perfectly. Here are some pix of the rails installed without plastics and unlit, and then with GI on along with the plastics installed. I can't wait for Colorado winter to be over so I can work on the cabinet, finish up the project, and play the thing!

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splickety_lit - have you gotten around to recreating the labels yet? Weather in CO is still too cold/nasty for me to do any cabinet work, but I'm going to start cleaning up the EM board here soon now that my Black Knight project is (finally) done.

splickety_lit - are you doing the labels for the bottom cabinet board as well? I'm going to sand and pretty up my board with new labels....I'll take a shot at repro'ing them if these aren't in your plans.

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Anyone know what kind of label went here (mine seems to have been ripped out)? The stapled remnants look pink, probably was red, maybe a voltage warning since it's near the transformer?

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That looks a little better....

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First draft of the Jones Plugs label for the EM bottom cabinet board. Unfortunately, the length is longer than standard paper so I need to scrounge up some legal size for test prints. I usually use 67lb card stock (antique white) when repro'ing Bally cards. Looks like Amazon has some...my local Staples does not.

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A couple more first drafts. My 67lb antique white card stock paper should be here later this week.

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EM Board update - this won't be everyone's cup a tea, but I think I'm going to like it. Going blue on the board (the same blue I'll be using for the cabinet stencil) - it should pop nicely against a nice white cabinet interior. And I also decided to go with regular white labels/cards instead of antique white.
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Got the EM Board back together. New power cord, replaced a several frayed wires, new coil wrappers, and scrubbed 40 years worth of grime off of the mechs and wire hardness with a toothbrush and Mean Green. I'm happy with the way it looks. I'll be a few more months before I'm able to power it up...hope to start repair work on the cabinet soon.

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Up next....the Chime Box. This thing was pretty nasty - here's what I started with:

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First up was the resonator box. I tried several things over the last couple of weeks:
- scrubbing with Mean Green, Simple Green, and Tilex mold and mildew remover
- cleaning with bleach
- soaking in Clairol Professional 40 Volume Pure White Creme Developer under artificial UV light and direct sunlight for hours on end. This has worked in the past for me when trying to whiten plastic parts that have yellowed with age and thought that might help here, but alas no.

Marco's has a 3D printed Bally EM resonator box for $22 - I'll use that as a backup if I need to. Meanwhile, I went ahead and painted my original with a light coat, just enough to cover the splotches. Not sure if this will affect tone or not, but we're not exactly talking about a precision instrument here so who knows.
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Next up were the chimes themselves. They looked pretty far gone but even in this box's present condition it actually sounded ok before I tore everything down. Amazing what a couple minutes on the bench buffer with some compound followed by hand polishing with Flitz will do.
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I also cleaned and painted the bracket itself getting rid of all the tarnish and burn marks. Finished up by putting in new bits from a Marco's Chime Rebuild kit and new coil wrappers, and this one is done.
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Next up - finishing the Tilt Board.

Tilt board pretty much complete, no major issues. Might put in new brass brackets for the tilt bob before all's said and done.

Before:
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After:
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Hey splickety_lit (or anyone with a NR EM) - don't suppose you could help me out here? I took a million pictures during tear down but I guess it should've been a million and one. In going over my EM Board photos today I can't find where this green wire goes (with the eyelet for a screw and it being green, I'm assuming it's a ground). It's clumped in the EM Board wire harness with the three green wires that go to the power switch and would be located somewhere in the front right corner of the cabinet.

I don't suppose you have a photo or could tell me where this wire goes? Thanks in advance...

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Ah...that makes sense. Thanks so much!

Here's the best picture I could find of that area during tear down....sadly, I didn't get a shot AFTER I removed the chime unit. I cannot find that housing plate for the switch in my cabinet parts, and this picture (along with that grounding wire seemingly stuffed loose under the EM board) would suggest that somewhere along its life my NR got a replacement switch and was not properly grounded. I'll have to address that during re-assembly.

Thanks again.

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I still have the coin door, backbox EM board, and cabinet to refresh but I just couldn't wait to see what kind of punch list I'm going to have at first power on. Plus working thru an electrical punch list will be infinitely easier to accomplish in this "out of the cabinet" setup vs. doing it in the cabinet. Power on actually went ok.

First power on blew the 8A fuse on the bottom EM board. It went quick, so I started at the transformer thinking maybe I wired up something incorrectly, like the new power cord I put in. Sure enough, 30 seconds into eyeballing it I saw I put the new power cord ground wire in the wrong place. Rectified that and it powered on ok with all GI coming on. Then it coined up ok. Then it started a game ok. How exciting!

Now, the punch list. This is partial as I'm sure I'll discover more:

SWITCHES
- Left inlane rollover works intermittently
- Right inlane rollover doesn't register at all
- Left Drop Target Bank: middle target doesn't score when dropped
- Right Drop Target Bank: all drop targets register, but the bank won't reset

COILS
- Top Hole Bonus coil energizes at power on and stays energized. I disconnected the coil wires so that I can continue to troubleshoot other things.
- Middle Chime coil does not energize at power on, but as soon as a 100 value is scored the coil energizes and stays energized. I have the Chime Box disconnected for now so that I can continue to troubleshoot other things.

LIGHTS
- Bottom Pop Bumper won't light
- Bonus control lights in the middle of the playfield sometimes work, sometimes not. I haven't fooled around with it long enough to see what the pattern is and where to start.

WRONG SCORING
- I have the Top Hole Bonus coil disconnected for now to troubleshoot later, but I can manually advance the 1000/50/3000/50/5000 values. The two 50's score correctly and the 5000 scores correctly but the 1000 scores 50 and the 3000 scores 1000.

STUFF THAT WORKS!
- All three stand-up targets
- The two score switches behind the Drop Target Banks
- The two score switches on either side of the Top Hole
- Both outlane rollovers
- All three pop bumpers
- All GI on the playfield (GI on backbox light board not refreshed yet but most are working)
- Slings (scoring and coils)
- Eject coil and switch
- Flippers
- Both spinners
- Top Hole (eject and scoring)
- All reels on all 4 players work tho the 100's on Player 4 won't trip the 1000's after 900.

All in all, I think things are looking pretty good considering the playfield swap and how much I tore this down, cleaned, and put back together.

I'll probably work on this punch list for a while before starting the coin door, backbox EM board, and cabinet.

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Made some progress on the punch list last night!

- Left inlane rollover works intermittently
- Right inlane rollover doesn't register at all
Missing ground wire. No matter how much you're paying attention to the tear-down photos of a playfield swap, you're always going to miss something.

- Left Drop Target Bank: middle target doesn't score when dropped
Scoring leaf switch adjustment (mounted on back of assembly) took care of this.

- Right Drop Target Bank: all drop targets register, but the bank won't reset
Leaf switch adjustment (mounted on the bottom of the assembly) took care of this. However, now that it resets, not all targets stay up. The reset bar looks like it needs adjustment, will have to add that to the shrinking punch list.

- Middle Chime coil does not energize at power on, but as soon as a 100 value is scored the coil energizes and stays energized. I have the Chime Box disconnected for now so that I can continue to troubleshoot other things.
I moved the coils around in the chime box to see if the problem stays in the 100 location or follows the coil (expecting the former). Alas, the problem went away. Perhaps reflowing the solder helped? Seems unlikely, but I can't recreate the problem anymore.

- Bottom Pop Bumper won't light
Corrected bad solder job on my part.

- Bonus control lights in the middle of the playfield sometimes work, sometimes not. I haven't fooled around with it long enough to see what the pattern is and where to start.
After cleaning the contacts on the Bonus Unit wiper and board (and coating them with a conductive grease), this is working way better. Adjustments still need to be made to the wiper arm position to make it bullet proof.

It's alive! I really hate working on the early Bally drop targets....so, so finicky. I've spent close to 4 hours over the last 3 days getting these to work consistently without having one or multiple targets not reset or drop immediately after resetting. It was doing this to a degree before the tear down and honestly I thought that after taking everything apart for a good cleaning and putting in brand new targets and springs that I wouldn't have much of an issue. WRONG! It was actually worse. But, I finally found the right combination of changes and both target banks are now working pretty reliably:

- Had to move one bank away from the edge a bit so the target faces don't touch wood on the way up.
- Had to move one bank away from the rubber to that there's no bounce back on the way up.
- Had to replace one of the new coil sleeves due to a crack I didn't notice before, and I think the crack was creating some drag on the plunger.
- Adjusted the reset bar position dozens of times on both banks.

But, I think we're there now. Couple of targets still need to leaf spring adjustments for scoring but I'm calling it a night.

Here are a couple quick videos of the drop targets in action. Good to see the bonus lights working consistently well now, too - new lamp sockets and LEDs were always good but I needed to adjust the tension of the wiper arm on the Bonus Unit and add some grease to the wheel contacts to get the lights working reliably.

Should have time Sunday to start on the Top Hole Unit and see what's causing the coil to energize at power on (and take a closer look at the disc wiper for the lights and scoring - thanks, @markg).

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Turned my attention today to the scoring issue with my Top Hole Bonus Unit again. Might be on to something.

First, a little background. When I got this non-working project and after I got it to coin-up and start a game, one of the things that continued not to work was the Top Hole Bonus Unit. It obviously had some sort of "heat event" given the playfield scorching, the seized coil (incorrect part number installed, BTW), and the melted plastic plunger ratchet thing.
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I rebuilt it with replacement parts and got it "working" - some bonus values were awarded points, others were not. I dug deeper.

I took the Top Hole Bonus Unit apart and found a broken trace on one of the PCBs (the one that drives the scoring). With my somewhat limited soldering skills, I fixed the trace the best I could.
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I reassembled the unit and lo and behold, it worked better. It now awarded bonus points when the ball activited it in the top hole for EACH of the 5 selections, but only 3 of the selections awarded the correct points (1000 and 5000 were awarded 50 and 1000, respectively). I was satisfied at the time that I could move on to other things not working and worry about the scoring discrepency during restoration, secretly hoping that after everything was torn down, cleaned/parts replaced, switches adjusted, etc. that it would magically work again. It doesn't, and that's where I am now, trying to figure out why 1000 awards 50 and 3000 awards 1000.

I tracked all related wires and examined all related switches and nothing jumped out at me. Per MarkG's suggestion, I took a closer look at the wipers and contacts and then I noticed something that is not right.

On the PCB that drives the score motor, when the wiper is in Position 9 the wiper is touching the appropriate PCB contact AND the trace repair I made....the trace repair is TOO TALL.
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MarkG - does this seem like the likely cause of my Top Hole Bonus scoring issue? I'm going to try to fix my previous trace repair and make it lower profile if I can. Not sure how rare or obtainable this part is....given my limited soldering skills, I'd be happy to buy a used one if it's in better shape than mine. Maybe I'll reach out to Steve Young and see what he has.

MarkG - success! I re-did the trace repair using a thinner gauge insulated wire that can sit on top of the other traces and come in from the side and be small enough not to interfere with the wiper contact. With this mod, the top hole bonus lights and awarded points are now all correct!
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I'm taking a moment to enjoy resolving this after futzing with it for days before I move on to the next set of anomalies. I may post these in the Night Rider club thread as I'm not familiar with what the correct behavior is for the first two issues, and the user manual doesn't go into that much detail.

1 - Double Bonus Enablement
To get Double Bonus lit for doubling the end of ball bonus points, you must get the ball in the top hole saucer when the Double Bonus light just below the saucer is lit. That saucer Double Bonus light is lit ONLY when the saucer 1000 lamp is lit (none of the other 4 bonus values light up the saucer Double Bonus). Is this correct? You can only get the Double Bonus enabled when the top hole saucer bonus is at 1000?

2 - Advance Bonus is ALWAYS lit
The Advance Bonus lights for both In Lanes and the center Standup target are always lit. The playfield artwork says "Advance Bonus WHEN Lit" implying that it shouldn't be lit all of the time. Not sure where to start on this one. Perhaps related: The "100 Points When Lit" at both spinners are ALWAYS lit and scoring 100 points, too. I think it's supposed to score 10 when those lights aren't lit, but they're never not lit.

Note: for the next Drop Target issues, the Drop Target Adjustment plug is set to Conservative and the Lane Adjustment plug is also set to Conservative. This is what the behavior should be:
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....and this is what I'm experiencing:
3 - Right Bank will reset when those 5 targets are down without waiting for the 5 targets on the left back to be down despite both plugs being set to Conservative. 3000 points are awarded, the SPECIAL lamp gets lit as does the Extra Ball lamp in the Right Out Lane. The Extra Ball Lamp light does NOT alternate between the right and left out lanes no matter what target or rollover is hit on the playfield.

4 - Left Bank will not reset when those 5 targets are down (as expected when both plugs are set to Conservative). When the targets are downed in the Right Bank, both banks are reset and 3000 points are scored (instead of 6000), the SPECIAL lamp gets lit as does the Extra Ball lamp in the Right Out Lane. The Extra Ball Lamp light does NOT alternate between the right and left out lanes no matter what target or rollover is hit on the playfield.

Any guidance would be appreciated - will probably start digging into this more tonight.

Answered my own question on this one, and the answer is yes. I stared at the schematic of this circuit for I don't know how long and it didn't jump out at me till just now.
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On with the rest of the punch list....

I THINK I understand this now - all of the aforementioned lights are affected by whether or not 3-Ball or 5-Ball game is set. I've had it in 3-Ball mode which, if I'm reading it right, will indeed light up all those lights all of the time. When I set the game to 5-Ball, the lights do alternate and the appropriate scores recorded depending on if the light is lit or not.

My slight dyslexia makes it challenging for me sometimes to logically process Make/Break switches in my head....need to write stuff down as I triage.

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