A couple of weeks ago, a gentleman that helps out at my local barcade, pulled me to the side and asked if I was looking for a new project. I said absolutely! What have you got? He tells me a story about a girl his wife works with had an eight ball that he had just pulled out of their barn. The first question was DELUXE? And yes was his answer. He had me hook line and sinker.

Fast forward 2 weeks and I took ownership of it. I brought it home last night and set it outside with an air compressor and began blowing all the mud dobbers and cobwebs out of it. The glass had a good layer of bird shit coating it. So after making it clean enough to bring it my work space, I lugged it into the house.

So I am gearing up for my second rebuild now. I have the wiring harness out of the head along with the circuit boards. I will start here with the cabinet, so i can get my foundation to 100%.

I will be able to start getting some better pictures up hopefully to tomorrow.

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Me too there is no burnt areas or traces. But I may just get an All Tek 3 board kit just to treat myself. Main focus is the cabinet for now. Along with cleaning up everything. I want it looking and playing su purb. I will have to figure out something with the playfield.

I wish there was a hardtop for it.

Had a long evening working on EBD. My buddy came over and gave me a hand. He is very interested in the mechanics of pinball machines. He asked if he could apprentice while I worked on this project. I take a scatter shot approach to my projects. So its time to just focus on the cabinet for now. As promised here are the homecoming pictures.

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Last night and tonight I got the cabinet stripped photographed and sorted in zip lock bags and the wiring harness is ready for the dish washer. I will get the cabinet over to the shop for stripping and repairs. The machine was drilled for a coin door lock bar. The floor will have to be replaced along with a few dings and gouges.

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One other item will be cutting a new back box light and display panel. "not sure on the name" This one has a ply that is separating all the way around. It just needs a new start.

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Yeah I'm supper happy with it. I entered the hobby about a year ago and the first private collection I saw, he had one and I just couldn't stop playing it. That moment I knew I would have one. It is one I have been keeping my eye out for since that night.

Good luck to you. I like working on them more then playing

Head is sanded. And gluing in two loose plys.
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The sander hardly dented it. I hate to do it but I'm going to use this chemical stripper.

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80 grit in my orbital turned it to tar. One side already complete. It will get sanded thoroughly after this.

Bottom came out easily. The "nibbler" makes it nice.

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Coin door lock holes are filled

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First coat of primer this morning. Maybe be able to do a little sanding this evening.

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Third coat of primer.

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What do you guys use to fill the small planking marks that the primer won't fill. I tried this on the head side. But the right side of the cabinet body has the same issue. Will body filler do the same thing?

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Thank you. That makes sense.

First base coat is on the lower. Almost sprayed the head and thought wait. This is supposed to be ivory.

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Sprayed the last base coats thursday, and brought it home from the shop.

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So now I installed the first stencils after 2 and a half days of curing.

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And finally sprayed the first color. Rust-Oleum canvas white.

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And one small problem that can be touched up.

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And now the head.

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Thank you. It's moving along.

Legs back from sand blasting.

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And painted. Thanks timab2000 for the flat iron grey paint you mentioned in your lost world restore.

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I did all that on my last rebuild. It was about $230 to do everything including the coin door.

This will be a bone stock EBD. Besides making it more serviceable with molex connections.

Getting that final color on.

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Haha thank you. The corn flies are every where. I used a fan to keep them out of the paint. It's hard to peel stencils with bugs crawling in your eyes.

Here is the head.

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I have been using the basic Rust-Oleum since my last project. The fast drying products have never worked well for me.

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Pm sent
Thank you

If you like that here are some pics of the power supply. Not worth the time to rebuild.

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Just pulled a tape on my lock bar and all the measurements match. Yours is in much better shape than mine.

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Sorry guys I started working up the cabinet Saturday night. Here is were I'm at. The tilt panel is getting refreshed.

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Display panel being broke down. I have taken plenty of pictures so I can get the ground braid rerouted correctly.

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I have a question. Is there a source where I can buy bulk staple down lamp sockets that won't cost me 2 buck a pop? The display panel alone has 47 lamp sockets. They are 555 size, which I'm not a fan of. The 44 size is what I want. The best price I have found is on pinball life. But it will still cost me 60 dollars in lamp sockets alone. Any leads on modestly priced bulk sockets?

PB Resource for the win. 70 cents a socket.

I am going to build a new panel. I am going to match the 1/2 thickness. It is just a cabinet grade plywood. I think Lowe's calls it blonde wood. It looks like birch to me.

Light panel all traced. I will take it to the shop tomarrow for a drilling and jigsaw session.

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Molex connections installed on 7 bank drop. I have been listening to the Roger Sharpe interview with Harry Williams. Amazing recording.

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Taa daa!

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Cut and drilled. DELUXE blinder installed ready for paint. I made two. One for me and one for a fellow pinsider.

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A care package from the great white North arrived today. Thank you so much @luckydogg420. He even sent some awesome arcade tokens. Super cool!

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I need to find some from the two arcades from my childhood past. There was one that is long gone called Putt Putt Golf and Fun. I think I remember playing high speed 2 there.

The other one is TILT from Eastland Mall here in Evansville Indiana. My local barcade has the neon sign that hung above the entrance. I will get you guys a picture Wednesday night. It is tournament night in my little slice of heaven.

All mechs removed and cleaned in the dishwasher.

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The drop banks are rebuilt using new sleeves and targets. The seven bank needs a new coil cv-31-2000. I accidentally bought a cj-31-2000. I need to pay closer attention.

The coil had been locked on for a long time black and completely frozen. Had to pry the sleeve out. So I need to find out why.

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You can. The problem you may run into is losing the wrapper if they are not stock. The bally wrappers stayed on but you can see what the aftermarket ones did. Painters tape also stays on anything you may label.

I used my buddies dishwasher. He thinks I am nuts for putting this stuff and wiring harness in there. But he is impressed when it comes out super clean.

Worked the mylar up this morning. I started last night with the freeze spray. It wasn't working well. So I took a break and tried the heat gun. Worked like a charm. I lost a little paint, not bad. The flour method handled the glue no problem.

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Thank you. I am no professional by any means. Just trying the best that I can with the tools I have. Pinball-DOOD I will be over in Louisville this afternoon to watch Notre Dame play Louisville. I just have to talk my Father into swinging by Zbar for about an hour.

No zbar but damn nice stadium Louisville

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Three back to back fumbles. Luck of the Irish.

The clear coating is under way. Thursday I prepped and sprayed the first coat. I tried using my small 5 gallon compressor and it couldn't handle it. So I hooked up to my neighbors 30 gallon for the second coat this morning. And I'm getting the sustained pressure I need. Here is the time line. The second pic is after I sanded the bubbles and dips out best I could.

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While that's drying let's get this mess cleaned and organized!

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Well I would just like a smooth playing game at the moment. This game won't be leaving for quite a while. CPR or a hardtop would be ideal in the future.

There is something cool about a worn game that plays clean.

Display panel build up.

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Completed and mounted.

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I get a lot of questions about that one. Here is the rebuild link. 3.5 months of playfield paint work. That game got a ton of love.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/another-f-14

Sanded this evening. Leveled up real nice!

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One small Breakthrough. Oh well looks like one more coat is in order.

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Final coat is on. Just a little bit of light orange peel. Going to get that sanded out and polished.

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Polished up. Left the gloss level on the flat side. Going to get some wax on now.

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I will slowly put it together over the upcoming week. I have to clean the posts and plastics. Although the I could use some new plastics. I may just clean everything up and change the plastics later down the road. The budget is running thin for the time being.

I did add a little extra hardener on the final coat. The other play fields I have done seem to play slower. I use Nason 2K urethane clearcoat and it seems to grip the ball a bit. Makes for more spin and movement on drop and live catches. I am hoping the extra hardener tightens the surface a bit more. So its more like a 4.25-1 instead of 4-1 ratio.

I appreciate that, Thank you. Its all enjoyment. I seemed to cycle through hobbies constantly before I stumbled on pinball. It started with a free game. Then investigating tournaments. The socializing that comes from my local pinball scene fuels the desire to play and collect. I have to be careful how I collect machines. It's a building investment, bargain machines so I can , and my friends, experience lots of pinball for a long time.

I am a residential carpenter and worked as a auto mechanic for 3 years. Those skills really help.

That does make sense. The first playfield I cleared changed quite a bit from the time I sanded till today (almost a year). It has some imperfections that I can see on the correct angle. I know that it was level when it was reassembled. It does not affect play ability and no one else can really see what I'm talking about.

Slowly....

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Treats in the mail today. The last two days have seen a lot of reassembly. (Johnny 5 voice)

The 6 pieces of tape are the last wiring connections. If pinball league wasn't Wednesday nights I would be so close.

The last of the project needs-

New bulbs
New plastics
Please God I hope the three original boards work.
Oh yeah the knocker.

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Good Morning pinsiders.

Yesterday was truly a test of will for me. Now that I have slept, its time to bring the update. The game is working but with some minor issues. But what it took to get there was trying my patience.

I assembled the rest of the mechs and playfield hardware about 10:00 am. By about 12:00 I decided that it was time to wire it up. That took about an hour and a half. So at 1:30 I flipped the switch with just the solenoid driver hooked to the power supply board j3 and j4. The board made a clicking sound but the leds fired up showing I had 5 volts for the mpu and the high voltage. The noise quit after 2 seconds, so It didn't register in my brain.

So I plugged in the mpu and started it again. Nothing just high voltage on the solenoid board. Unhooked the mpu and same symptom. This is where I should have stopped but in my frustration I grabbed the meter and started checking fuses and the power supply board. I changed the blown fuse that supplies the back box. Fired it up and all good. Plugged in the mpu and mpu won't boot. So I grab an alltek out of another game and set it up.

The game starts on the mpu Success!! Lets hook it up. Man I'm dumb. I plug in every connector. Flip it on fuses blow like crazy. 43 volt fuse and the 20 amp J2 power board supply. What happens next over the next 3-4 hours is me cycling through plugging individual connectors to see in which areas my problems lie. WOW fuse after fuse.

Here is what happened.

A few days ago I needed the wiring description for connector J3 on the solenoid board. Another pinsider sent me all the info I wanted. And I wired it up. I made a mistake, Its my screw up. I followed his directions but I put one wire one location high on the connector. Which in turn moved up the 12 wires that came after it up one location. I figured this out way to late. So my Solenoid Board is fried I have no desire to work on it.

I move the wires to the correct positions. Grab a solenoid board out of that other game. Fires right up.

I found quite a few issues while I was diagnosing. So it was not a complete waste of time. The coin-door lock out coil was a dead short, blowing the 43 volt. The 20 amp is the playfield GI. Need to find that one. And the center pop bumper coil is a dead short. The sound board also needs to be recapped. As well as a MPU and solenoid driver board from Alltek.

After a good nights sleep I feel a lot better. So yesterday with this game started at 10:00 am and lasted till 9:00 pm after everything was said and done.

It doesn't feel so bad now. Sorry for the lack of posts. The project is on hold for the time being. I'm selling a couple games and have another purchased lined up.

I am going to need a set of boards. But with vacation coming up in a few weeks. I need to watch the budget.

Hey everyone,

I finally got off my butt and started messing around. Yesterday I tracked down my GI problems. Seems that the bulb that was underneath the star rollover was a short. It took some time because it had also fed that short reading into another strand. Due to the shared connection between both sides of the playfield GI. I am glad to have that gremlin gone.

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The other item fixed today was replacing the center pop number coil. Which was also a dead short. I checked over the rest of the coils just to double check. Everything looks good so I have my fingers crossed.

I just wish that alltek would have had a black Friday sale. It looks like all they are offering is a free clip board.

So the only items left are new plastics and the three board bundle.

One more question. Where can I find these bell stand offs? I can't seem to find any at the normal places.

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Thanks for the info. I have never changed those out before. I am missing about three or four of them. I will try to find some aluminum tubing. I have a flaring tool to try to recreate the shape as close as possible.

A very cool pinsider reached out to me about the metal bells. He sent me 3 of them. Just what I needed. A big shout out to @ODENONMYSIDE513. Thank you Sir.

New CPR plastics arrived and installed.

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Everything fit right in. No problems. The only thing was the metal standoffs. Melting them back into the new plastics was nerve racking. Haha

Man, I been busy. Unfortunately not on EBD.

The MPU from Weebly arrived last week. And I also received an order from big daddy. It was a SDB rebuild kit. High power kit, 5 volt kit, and 4 transistors blown. So I changed all the components in those paths. So I got those installed over the weekend.

I have a booting game now! So I'm super pumped. The items I have to work on now is multiple coils not firing. Due to a blown U2.

The other issue is the left flipper not activating. I worked back to the flipper relay not sending power out to the flipper button.

That misplaced wire on the connecter on the SDB really caused some havoc. But I feel like I'm on the downward slope.

Big strides in the last few days. Fixed a problem with the 7 bank reset. The squawk and talk board is back in operation. Added caps to two switches that were not registering quick enough. Still have quite a few bulbs out. So expect to see a picture wrap up in the next few days.

Finally in the books. Thank you to everyone who supported me on this journey. It was another great learning experience for me, electrically. So many Gremlins along the way. And slogged it out one by one. I am extremely happy the way it came out.

Perhaps I will get a hardtop and a new backglass in the future but for now I am happy to enjoy it.

Quit Talking and Start Chalking!

I removed it and clear coated coated the playfield. That is why you see the partial paint loss around the playfield.

Well the EBD just did a hard three days at the Louisville arcade Expo. Trial by fire!!

It made it all the way through. The only issues I ran into were the multiplier drop targets not resetting on Saturday. Loose solder joint at the coil.

The Two ball drop target got knocked out of track and jambed.

Then for some strange reason the mpu switched to credit play late on Saturday. I loaded it up with credits. And then checked it an hour later and it was working again. Humm...?

But I was so happy it survived the show.

Just checked the audits 992 plays. And 1024 min of play. Wow that seems high?