Quoted from Chrisbee:Steve, during another post I realised the purpose of the lock relay on your machine (And others). It insures that the machine is at a known position at power on, “Game Over”. If you turn the power off in the middle of a game then back on, you will be at game over.
This might be the same on older Williams games too. I have a Ding Dong, made in 1968, that has the lock relay permanently closed. That means when I hit the switch, the game lights up without hitting the left flipper button. And if I turn it off in the middle of a game, then turn it back on, I'm still in the middle of the game.
It was this way when I bought it and I've never fixed it. I assume the coil got cooked because it's one of those high resistance continuous duty coils, but even so they eventually get pretty weak. It probably couldn't hold the relay closed any longer so they just forced it closed and went on their way.
The game will tilt and it will go to game over normally. But it won't do what I posted above.