SOLVED....Mis-wired Triac....see last post.

I picked up a basket case Spy Hunter this past weekend. I've worked through most the issues relatively quickly including getting the flaky MPU back up and running (connector related, no acid damage), the last big remaining one is that the GI does not ever flash as it should. At first inspection, the Gate wire was disconnected from the Triac, and the 555 bulb was missing from the tiny under PF aux board (No solenoid expander board on this game FYI). I soldered the wire back on, installed a new bulb, and still no change.......I went to lamp test, the bulb flashed for the Tiny Aux board, but no GI cycle....here's an itemized list of what's been done and symptoms (to make for easier reading). Keep in mind I have my 100% perfectly running Mr. and Mrs. Pac-man pinball right next to it that I have been swapping stuff back and forth with to troubleshoot and i fully understand how the triac works which makes me think i'm reverse grounded somewhere in the GI circuit....

I have swapped/done the following from my Pac to the Spy Hunter with no change (I also put all the Spy hunter components in my Pac and they all worked fine).......

1)Tiny Aux Board
2) Triac (I also have a spare new triac that i tried with no change, at this point I ruled the triac out)
3)Lamp Driver Board
4)Rectifier Board

Interesting notes.....

1) On Spy Hunter I can completely unplug the Tiny Aux board on my spy hunter and the GI stays on/is not affected in any way...if i do it on my Pac it goes out...
2) On Spy Hunter I can unplug the white 3 pin inline connector (Green/White/Blue wire) near the rectifier board that goes to the top of the triac, and the GI stays on....if i do it on my Pac it goes out (In effect turns off the triac, so it should go out)...

Here's where it gets more interesting....

3) On Spy Hunter if i unplug the white 2 pin inline connector (Green/White wire) near the rectifier board that goes to the BOTTOM (crimped eyelet) of the triac, the GI goes OUT, if i do it on my Pac it stays ON.
3) On Spy Hunter If I unscrew/unmount the triac from the metal plate AND HOLD THE EYELET WITH THE GREEN WHITE WIRES CRIMPED ON IT TO THE PLATE (Ground it basically) the GI will turn back on (With NO triac in the circuit, basically same thing as step 2 above). If i do the same on Pac, there is no change.

So my conclusion...i THINK (which is why i came here) is that the return side of the GI is grounded somewhere on the game (bottom wires on the Triac) since it's basically doing the same thing as plugging the two pin harness into the 3 pin harness at the rectifier board(which many have done to bypass the triac on other Ballys).

The game had hacks and I've undone them all (I think), but none that i can see as part of the GI...and i looked at every socket (to the best of my ability, but i always could of missed something) and can't find an issue.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on where to look?? The GI circuit is pretty straight forward, so i feel like it should be right under my nose. And i'm 99% sure it's not related to any boards.

Thanks and thanks for taking the time to read my long post!!

Not to be "that guy" but i'm gonna bump this up. This is by far the strangest issue I've found in a while!

I just wanna follow up with how i resolved this because i'm seeing inconsistencies out there....

I'm not sure if my game was mis-wired from the factory or what...but long story short, i swapped the GI return wires on the Triac and it works correctly now....In a nutshell I put the green and white wires that were on the eyelet on the bottom of the Triac to the top post of the triac, and the green and white wires from the top of the triac onto the eyelet on the bottom and all is well now.....I ran across a pic (attached) in someone's for sale ad that showed theirs wired this way (You can see in the pic that the GI returns from the plug with the blue gate wire split off to the bottom of the Triac) and decided to try it. I also attached snippets of my manual vice my Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man Pinball manual, which shows the Triacs are wired differently (see the triangles on the Triac in the pic...Spy Hunter has them facing the same way vice Pac).

Oddly I see about half the Spy Hunters on YouTube don't flash at all, so i wonder if they are mis-wired from the factory and no one has taken the time or care to diagnose it or maybe they just bypassed the Triac all together.

Hopefully this helps someone!

Triac (resized).JPG

Pac Pin Triac (resized).JPG

Triac Spy Hunter (resized).JPG

Is it not flashing too? I hated to "re-wire" it...but i literally was 180 backwards from how Mr. Mrs, pacman pin was...so i figured "WTH i'll give it a shot!" once i saw that pic and the schematics.....I know Bally was getting pretty sloppy around that time period, so it's hard to tell what's really "right" and "wrong". ha ha!