today I picked up 2 classic williams system 6- blackout and firepower- both are firsts for their features- given their conditions I thought this would make a perfect topic for and old school vs new school restoration comparison- it will include both cosmetic and electronics and we will try and keep score on costs with a goal of helping people decide which way they want to go- tomorrow, before they are touched I will be posting pics but first lets see who our contestants are- Firepower- paid 650- bg is completely roached- no pf glass no legs- power supply and speech sound board present other boards mia- top of pf- missing all plastics and the impossible to find bumper caps- can tells it was stripped for parts- missing metal plates that go behing saucers, all pf plastic posts and screws, spinner and bracket, the metal outlane guides (if you have any of this lmk) as well as their screws. underside looks complete- cabinet is maybe a 7 head is a 6. missing master display and 1 slave display. This will be our modern resto- I have wolfpack led displays, rottendog mpu and power supply, cpr pf and plastics and while right now the bg is unobtainium, this will be full resto with all modern aftermarket stuff. for what its worth original pf is exceptionally nice for a firepower. wiring looks basically good. Blackout- very nice survivor- all boards and displays nice cabinet nice pf-bg missing- new one ordered from planetary pinball- going to clean plastics and polish before replacing- all the boards look good- going to go old school- everything as original as I can- interboard connector included for now although it will get reflowed. both get new legs and pf glass. I think it will be interesting to contrast a money no object throw everything at it versus a lets keep it as original as possible but done thoroughly and correctly- cant say I have ever seen that done side by side- so this is where we are starting from. I will post pics tomorrow before and cleaning or anythnig just as they sit to establish a baseline and we will see how far down the rabbit hole each goes- the goal is to get a better idea of what is needed and what is just throwing money at the wall on a resto- I am excited to share this topic and I hope everyone will offer their thought and ideas as this will very much be a community driven topic I hope. Thanks and pics tomorrow

I apologize for not following up- had some health issues- here is a big update- first I sold my awesome Black Knight project to I think very good home and someone who will make it that game everyone wishes they had. So- ordered everything I could get from Marco for firepower- still missing some random pf parts- see photos and please hit me up- Gor blackout repro glass thanks planetary pinball!!! So- Blackout is first- Firepower has all new boards I know it works- both leds lit- oh it fired up just recently the guy I got it from said lol. obviously the 5101 and socket replaced- those older 5101 are just static magnets. new ones arent so prone to self immolation. repl all sockets- got one blink- bad ram- of course you know it was the socketed one with the gold legs- if you see gold legs on a williams chip pretty much it is bad. then got game rom (but not flipper rom) bad gold legs of course- just ordered it and flipper roms from actionpinball.com. Man did they get them here quick during the holiday, great labeling, I was so happy with their price service and product- those guys kicked ass. No they dont give me discounts lol. Just some great guys credit where due. Unfortunately I dont write for Gameroom Magazine any more and it doesnt exist so no one cares about my endoresment now. so we are at- 5150, sockets, bad ram (only the left gold legged one that was socketed) and 3 new roms- it lives- I did order battery holder off ebay the leads are spaced wrong its for williams arcade like defender not pinball the pinball battery holders are spaced closer- did not realize that - so came up in 04, coin door and right into attract, sound board passed perfectly as they usually do. have to cap pwr supply and sound speech of course. best not confuse the issue right now- obviously there is funny business with the displays- since its all of them its likely dirty traces on the master unit and I really dont feel like re pinning all those connectors. I will check for ac ripple on the main power and go from there but that looks like dirty traces not ripple ac. So some would say hey you got it- no... I got it working after 30 years- now the real work begins- every coil sleeve replaced, links replaced, got knows how bad the switches are, the flippers are shot I am sure, as are cabinet switches since its all full voltage, so yeah now the real work begins- but it lives and that is a great thing- we saved another one. Next is cpr plastic set (maybe they will donate one) and writing a big check to marco for all the random stuff its going to need. not to mention taking everything out of the backbox and cleaning it- I literally take every single piece out and clean it I dont want some crusty crap in my game. So there is the update. Williams are a bitch to fix- the traces and sockets are even worse than Bally but if you proceed methodically they do respond. eventuallly

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oh the speakers obviously dont go to it they go to this- the hf100r no it is not for sale and there is no price I would take, sorry. seeburg 100b, 100c, the happy days box, hf100r, and rock ola 1462. None of them are for sale and there is no price that can take them please dont ask- I dont want to sound like a jerk but people go nuts when you post this stuff- I bought them to keep them I do this for love not money, they will never be for sale - to everyone else, enjoy, the hf 100r is what the speakers on blackout are from obviously I am missing a couple of speakers.

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quick follow up- Talked to Stu at CPR a few weeks ago- firepower backglasses went live today- already ordered mine

sorry for the delay- so Blackout is ready to go to storage- other than the missing flipper hardware everything is there and it powers up and works consistently- decided to wait on the slave display issue until full restoration- now to firepower- been spending a lot of money on missing parts- it was just missing so much. I have the pf out and will follow with pics so you see the hill I have to climb- as stated before I have rottendog mpu, new power supply, and wolffpack displays so getting it up and running should be a foregone conclusion. Before that I am deep cleaning inside the head and have all new screws for everything, will spray new white paint on door front. I want it looking brand new inside. Backbox is easy- pf is another animal- I have cpr pf and plastics, but it was missing so much off the top of the original- some parts were easy-cliffy made me some improved metal lane guides, but I needed the bells that go under them so had to go fish on ebay- I cant believe nobody makes those. then I realized the upper right plastic had a metal piece with bells under it and it also had 4 bells- so I founf a fellow pinsider (thanks jethro) who helped me out with that. At this point I felt I had enough to proceed- I had lane guides, new bumper caps and parts, new plastics, new posts, ordered 100 non ghosting 44 leds in warm white off aliexpress, spent 200 bucks or more at marco, had most of the missing metal. So last night I got the pf out, laid aqll my parts out and did and invertory- damn was I pissed- I am STILL missing some critical wire guides and a metal piece- I can make the wire guides but not the metal piece- I seriously curse whatever sob stripped this and lost all the parts. I am hoping the pinsider community can help me locate these parts- they are likely generic to any pinball of this era, A-8237 right ball guide assy, 12a-6541 upper right ball guide wire, 12b-6466-12 ball guide wire 3 inches long, 12a=6468 anti return ball guide wire 3 1/8 ( and this should be generic to every wms of that era), 12a-6543 upper left ball guide wire. of these, I cant make the a-8237 so that is the most critical- I reach out to the pinside community for help here- its that flat metal plate that screws into the pf behind the right targets where the ball comes up the shooter lane. In the meantime I have inspected the pf underside and the mechs all have to go in the polisher so I am going to take all relevant metal mechs like kickouts, flippers, etc for the first batch to be followed by all coil stops etc and restore those before the swap begins. also all the rollover switches. (not the contacts just part you see). Finally I am missing the spinner bracket and hoping I mights have one in a prts box somewhere but not sure- looked on ebay and they are all too rusted to use. When you see the pics you will see what an uphill struggle this is- but you know what, my hook was as bad or worse and now its looks brand new so you just have to tackle what you can and trust on the rest- pics posted in a few minutes. And help on parts is very greatly appreciated- I am sure they used most of those on many games of that era.

here is the pf as it is

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other than the fire and power inserts its not bad at all for a firepower. none of the usual wear. since I have a new one I am going to be careful swapping and try to polish and restore the original and then maybe I can donate it to someone on here who cant afford the cpr pf. I mean I could live with the original pf its not bad at all compared to pretty much every other one I have seen, which also tells me this particular game was in crap locations or stayed broken a lot because most firepower pfs are in horrible shape because wms clearcoat was almost nonexsistent and it was such a good game, so this one had an incompetent tech, bad location, stayed broken down, etc. as they say the camera doesnt lie so yeah its gonna be an uphill struggle, but my Hook was worse. So this week I am removing all the under pf metal and running it through the bulldog polisher. I have all new coil sleeves kit from my friends at marco and I do need to give them a shout out for their help in locating many of the missing parts and their wire forming kit, they are a great resource and will really go to bat helping you track down a part. They are my go to along with planetary pinball, so shout out to them and of course CPR. ok enough endorsements- so as I said I ordered led bulbs from aliexpress and they sent 555 instead of 44. The seller is sending replacements I will let you know how it goes- tomorrow I will test the 555 in hook and see how they look. they are non ghost and a little upgraded from what the usual ones you get so we will see, but it was 60 shipped for 100 and took about 3 weeks to get here. I am not at all disparaging any supplier here at all, I love comet pinball for example, they have bulbs nobody else has and you can bet I bought several different flashers from them for firepower, and I like how they send candy with your order, thats awesome. And they are very responsive like Marco. But just for background lights I was trying to save some money this time since I have so much money in this project. Right now here is where we are- the game was 600- pf 900-bg-350-misc from marco-230- misc on ebay including nos spinner and new bumper caps etc and pinside 160- led bulbs-65- comet pinball-45-its going to take 2 bottles of flitz for the polisher at 26 each. wollfpac displays 150- the rottendog mpu came from my black knight I sold as it notoriously wont work in that game, as did the power supply which was the wrong supply for black knight so I had to order a new one for black knight so thats another 130- lucking I have one set of new chrome legs left in my stash so that saved me a bit, but I will need new bolts. trim for the new bg is going to run at least about 50 and new pf glass will be about 100 unless marco would like to generously donate one (hint hint). So thats where I am so far

I really like Blackout. I got my glass I think from planetary pinball. I think your best bet on that head is to find a donor cabinet. My captain fantastic head is deplanking and thats what I am hoping to do, find a donor game.

I am finally having time to work on firepower. Just to update blackout is running. In storage right now. Firepower has all new boards so not worried about that. So...the cpr pf...ok..I appreciate it being available and it looks great but damn. Every single post dimple on the top is wrong. Suspiciously the are mostly all off by .396 on digital caliper. Had to fill them in and go by my old pf. The bottom is 10x worse. The laser marks are double tapped and every single one is way off. So it should take a minute to install a lane switch but no, it takes 10 minutes because I have to digitally measure off the original pf then mark and tap etc. Its a giant pain in the ass. I dont know what they used as reference. I have only installed nos pf and they were spot on. This one is so far off I wish they hadnt even marked it. Now that I can fix but the holes they drilled through I have to live with. I am honestly scared to see if they are off. I know its 1st run and I am happy to have it but damn for nearly a grand I expected much better