Hello,
I need to go see a Bally Grand Tour (1964) that has a score motor running endlessly. I'm familiar with 1970s Gottliebs, so I figure the first thing to check are the score reels.

Pinrepair.com also has the following startup sequence for 1970's Ballys. Does anyone know how close this would be to reality with a 1964 machine?

Bally Start-Up Sequence.

Coin is inserted into the game. The coin relay will energize. It will stay energized through its own hold-in switch and a score motor switch. If the credit button is pressed (instead of a coin being inserted) and there are credits, the credit relay will be energized which energizes the coin relay.
The coin relay will energize the lock relay (this turns the general illumination on). The lock relay will stay energized through its own hold-in switch and a delay relay switch.
The coin relay will energize the reset relay, through a game over relay switch (if your game won't start, try cleaning the contacts on the game over relay; a very common Bally problem).
The score motor will operate. This will energize the score reset relay(s). The score reset relay(s) will attempt to clear the score reels to zero. This is done by operating the score motor. Each turn of the score motor will operate the reset relay once, which in turns moves a score reel one position, until the score reel(s) are at zero. If the score motor continues to run when a game is started, there's a good chance the zero position switch on the score reel(s) is dirty or mis-adjusted.
The coin relay, through the score motor, will advance the total play meter.
The reset relay, through the score motor, will reset the stepper units (zero the ball count and player units).
The coin relay, through the score motor, will decrement the credit unit.
The coin relay, through the score motor, will energize the game over latch relay coil.
The coin relay, through the score motor, will energize the 100,000 relay latch coil(s) (if the game supports scores greater than 99,999).
If the outhole switch is closed (single ball games) or the ball trough switches are closed (multi-ball games), a ball is released to the shooter lane through the outhole relay (single ball game) or ball release relay (multi-ball game) and the score motor.
On multi-player games, the credit button may be pushed again to add a player. This time the coin relay will not energize the reset relay. Instead it will (through the score motor) advance the total play meter, decrement the credit unit, and advance the coin unit.

I couldn't figure it out...
When the machine starts up the motor starts running immediately and never ends. I tried to manually activate the Start and Game Over relays and could get a game to start. At some point I could get it to start by pressing the start button, but I still had to fiddle around with those Start-Reset-Game Over relays before I could do so.

I also tried removing all J connectors, and when it's in "never ending" state, it remains so. I left with the bottom board to work on it at home - I'm pretty sure something's off with one of those relays. I'm starting to make some sense of those 1960's schematics too, I was used to the Gottlieb ones but those are something else...

Ok... so either this sequence is way off, either it's just a matter of remapping the relay names to what I have on there.

Some of the relays I have on the bottom board are:
Start
Reset
Game Over
Tilt
1st shot
Multiple Play Coin
Hold
Ball return
Advance
Match

I also have the (huge) schematics, but they don't explain the startup sequence. For Gottlieb, these were in the manual, not the schematics, and I don't know if there were ever manuals made for those machines, but PBR doesn't have them.

After cleaning and adjusting all the switches on the bottom board, I kinda like the behavior I'm having though. Score motor doesn't run when I turn it on, and when I manually depress the start relay the motor runs shortly then resets the start relay.
I'd like to figure out how to simulate that the board is within the machine and close the correct score reel 0 position switches, the correct switch indicating there are credits available and anything else it would need...

Well,
I think that the motor endlessly running part is probably fixed, as it used to run endlessly even with all the J connectors plugged in, which it doesn't anymore.
I figure the start sequence probably needs input from just 2-3 switches to work, which is what I'd like to figure out so I can make sure the bottom board is working on its own before I go back to the guy's place and install it...

Thanks
Phil

Right,
but in the end it's just a matter of jumping the right wires to simulate that the reels are at the 0 position, that there are credits and I'm not too sure what else it would need from the playfield.

I'll look some more on the schematics to see if I can locate these... if not, well I'm pretty confident with my cleanup, I'll just put it back in there and see what happens.

Thank you Chris - I'll go install the bottom board back at the guy's place this weekend - I'll check all backboard switches and the bonus unit if there is one at the same time.
I'm pretty sure that should do the trick.

Not a big fan of those schematics compared to the Gottlieb ones - Gottlieb have a summary of all relays, where to find them, how many NO/NC are on there, color codes with letters instead of numbers - but I'm starting to get it.

Finally got it.
When the start relay activates, it closes a switch that powers up the coil to reset the start, reset, game over and some others I forget.
That switch has a stiff metal blade to help it stay in place - the metal blade was broken 2/3 of the way, so the switch would always bend back after a while, until it didn't make contact, so the start switch wouldn't get reset and the machine would behave as if the start button was stuck.