Hi everyone!

There are all kinds of clubs on modern machines - but EM clubs appear to be rare. Thus my first try to generate an EM club on a machine that I really like.

As you will know, Mariner is the 4-player version - mainly in blue color while #Sea Ray is the 2 player equivalent in a bit more greenish color scheme. Over here in Europe, we mainly have Mariner, while I only saw Sea Ray in the US - at least two of them in the PPM archives.

Looking forward to some discussions here. Let me suggest some topics to start with:
- Are there any differences in game play between Mariner and #Sea Ray ?
- Did anyone ever have or convert one of these to Add-a-ball as it is described on the flyer?
- What modifications did you do to the game? Thought about adding chimes or converting to multiball?
- How many bells did your game come with? Did anyone install more than 2 bells?
- coin doors: Mariner in Germany mainly came with 3 slots. How about other places?

EM-fan

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On game play, I straight forwardly understand, that there are only 2 things that give major points: Collecting the bonus and hitting the yellow mushroom bumper.

And yes, as the bonus can be collected two ways, this is my preferred one to score....

vec-tor, this is indeed an interesting mod. You make the bonus reset coil fire only one round? Please tell a bit more about the effect, this creates and how that impacts the scoring and gameplay!

@vec-tor!

Thanks so much for sharing your idea and knowledge. Seems almost a "must" for a good renovation

Will try to apply this on my machines as well. Might be able to design it myself, but a picture of the additional switch @ the Reset Coil RE would be nice to see.

Is this a more common problem among other Bally machines? Any other ones where this would apply?

Axel

Energie IV

just to share, that there is actually a mod of Mariner, that was apparently created in Germany. It even made it into ipdb under number 6004. Energie is the German word for energy.

During 2015/16 it was for sale on ebay for 1500€ for a long time and apparently did not sell. At current, it seems to be for sale for 950€ at Pauls50s still - a German pinball shop.

While the overall theme looks really nice, it appears, that the mod could have been executed with slightly more ambition. But judge yourself - easy to find on google.

Axel

There was a separate track on Mariner conversion to AAB - did anyone ever see or try this? What does such a conversion kit consist of? A new player or ball count unit?
Axel

interesting project indeed. Do you really have no backbox or just no backglas?

We are considering a project to recreate the backglas.

Axel

@ embryonjohn : this is indeed a really nice machine! Thanks for sharing the pictures!

@ BenTheCartoon : interesting find. Got something similar myself for Mariner, just the other way round: A backbox with no glas, bell or back, an almost complete playfield with only very few pieces "leveraged" and the matching CPU board. Got a "Big Valley" lower cabinet to complement the machine. My target is to get it back into working condition, adding all the missing parts.

Are backboxes interchangeable? Nothing is impossible, but I would say "not easily". If you find a 4-player backbox from the same period, that might give you the majority of the parts and pieces, but you will still have some major efforts to adapt the connectors and game special functions.
Also, in order to use a Mariner backglas, you might want to look for a machine that has the score reels in the same location - alike an Amigo or Bow & Arrow - but these are 3 and 4 years younger - during which time a few things might have changed...

EM-Fan

Hi Everyone!

Back here with some news of my very latest Mariner restoration project.

So, let us start with a bit of background and move back in time a bit to early 2015:

On Ebay Kleinanzeigen - which is the equivalent of craigs list here in Germany - I saw an offer for a Mariner playfield, which looked very good. Talking to the seller, he actually did not only have the playfield, but also the relay board from the cabinet and and after a bit of searching - even the backbox! No backglas, no bells and no backdoor, but at least everything that is mandatory to even attempt assembling of a working game.
So, tons of parts to search for, but in principle we could save a nice game!

Here see a picturs of what it was like when I got it.

Quite some pieces were missing on the playfield: one flipper finger unit was completely missing and so was a thumper bumper. The other flipper finger unit was missing pieces and so was another thumper bumper. Also, quite a few of the other units were not in optimal condition: sticky, burnt etc.

Stay tuned

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So, after a few months, I finally started to have a closer look at the playfield. Not as dirty as I had feared.

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The next step was to acquire a lower cabinet. None available for a Mariner (unless you have one and want to part from it - wink wink).
Thus I got one from a 1970 Big Valley - which is just one year older and exactly the same in terms of size. It even came with legs

Even the color was about matching. But - it is not exactly the same from the inside: the door and flipper connectors are different among the two games!

Have a look below. Not really best condition - but the colleague that gave it to me did not ask a fortune for it either...
But what we learn from this? It is cheaper to buy a complete game than assembling it from pieces!!!!

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Looks like the board in the cabinet needs some work though. Was able to find some matching screws and disks to mount them to the cabinet but by looking closer, the filter needs to be replaced. Looks like those were added into the German ones - not every of the games has it, but many of the ones with German money signs in the door. Interestingly enough, the games form this time which apparently were delivered to Switzerland and the Netherlands with other currencies do not have them!

Also, someone tampered with the fuses. Will replace the holders and re-arrange the original setting. Also the taps on the transformer will require to be changed. Will need to change from 220V to 240V - which is better for the 230V we have over here. In return, I will set the coils to "high tap".

What is missing in the cabinet is the connector for the flipper fingers!!! Too bad! Thus no test game easily possible.

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Now, let us look at some of the components. The Bonus Unit under the playfield clearly needed some overhaul:

Added the missing coils, coil stops, rubbers and screws. Also, everything was completely taken apart and every single piece was cleaned using all kinds of fluids, tools and materials. Found exactly the original screws on some part-out machine, and even replaced the springs and plungers against NOS parts I was lucky to get my hands on. Not to forget the new nylon coil sleeves. All contacts were cleaned and adjusted and at the end just a very little bit of the original contact disk grease from PBR applied to the disk.

Now, the unit works like a dream - smooth, exact - at least as good as new
See before and after pictures below.

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And it would be really nice if you could have a look at your archives: just in case you could find this plastic for me:

The plastic is on the lower right - just above the sling shotn removing it from the playfield.
Mine broke at the lower rubber: according to the manual, a 1" rubber is required - but even a 1 1/4" seems too tight on my game.

Thanks so much in advance!
Axel

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vec-tor relax the rubber ring?

This is completely new to me and I never did that. Just lengthen it a bit before installing? Should this always be done?

Have a good start into your new year!

Happy new year to all of you!

Replacement rubber rings on these machines - this is an interesting topic indeed! @dirkdiggler: Glad, that you were happy with your rubber set!

When replacing rubbers on my machines, I found the following flaws in the factory list:
- my games required 1 1/4" rather than 1" at the top left and the bottom right
- shooter tip not listed in the game manual - but sets typically include it anyway. I use white ones.
- the three standup targets can be equipped with a 7/16" rubber ring each - which is not mentioned in the factory list.
- do not forget to order the 4" rubber in the back of the cabinet holding the cables from the playfield
- on one of my games, someone added two extra posts to narrow the outlanes

Axel

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In renovating my playfield, I tried to get my flipper fingers into the best shape I could provide:

Everything is cleaned and adjusted and I deliberately left the aluminum coil sleeves in - while replacing them against nylon ones in all other places.
The flipper coils tend to become pretty hot when someone presses the flipper button for minutes during gameplay. And we have kids - thus this is not completely unexpected.
Also, I made certain, that all contacts are really clean alomng the complete power path.

A friend of mine actually custom made these brass bushings for me. Have them in some other games and they are so incredibly precise, that it is drastically improving gameplay - besides never again having to be replaced.

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vec-tor : Thanks for the advice!

Well - let me share my train of thought here:
- had many times pulled off some weathered pieces of something sticky and ugly here - and always wondered why they were there even though they were in no manual
- last week I realized, that in another game in which I had overhauled the flipper mechanics a year ago, one complete flpper unit had come loose! 3 of the 4 screws had fallen down for "no obvious reason".
- thus this seems to be almost a "must"?! Just that my material looks much thinner than what I had peeled of my games. Any advice on the correct material? Will try some tubes from the local hardware store next

Axel

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Much better with aquarium tube! It is much thicker and also holds much more firmly.

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Does any of you have a spare Mariner backglas - or know who would be creating a repro?
Would actually be nice to have a backglas for the Mariner I am just assembling from parts.

Work is coming along well. "CPU" base board is now almost completely overhauled - just a new LOCK RE. is required. In particular the power section was getting a complete renewal: High quality 20" rubber cord, retro plug, new line filter, new fuse holders and fuses, power re-wiring etc. Even added a new 3 1/2" white rubber band at the back of the cabinet to hold the cables... These should really become part of the rubber ring kits!

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Dear Mariner / Sea Ray fans!

Wanted to share my journey towards applying the "Beater Bonus Reset" mod to my Mariner. Application to the Se Ray should be completely identical. As discussed, this mod prevents unnecessary resets of the BONUS UNIT when the BONUS UNIT is already fully reset - thus reducing wear on the unit, plunger and coil stop.

You will require the follwing parts only for our game. In my case, they all came from a 1974 RoGo. 1970 Big Valley parts were somehow smaller and did not fit.
1) One set of normally closed switch blades with the respective spacers
2) two longer screws to hold the extended switch pack
3) about 8 inches of blue-white cable

In order to apply this mod on our machines, you best take the relay board out of the cabinet.

First step was to add a third set of switch blades to the BONUS "0" relay - as shown in the picture the spacers of the additional relay are a bit darker than the standard ones.

The switch blased are "normally closed" ones - they will open once the relay is pulled. Thus in effect, it acts like an inverting contact, negating the input signal. It is conducting, as long as the bonus is "not zero" and stop once the bonus is fully reset. So, we can just "loop this" in to the respective reset wire to achieve the mod.

The standard G-31-1800 coil used here is used to pull switch stacks of 6 or 7 blades at other places in the game - thus adding a third one to the stack does not trigger the need for any stronger coil.

The cable we are looking for to use is the blue-white one pictured below. Essentially, it needs to be led through this additional switch stack. We easily find it at two coils next to our one - question remains on how to modify the cables in order to apply minimum change to all cabling.

... to be continued ....

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