I was cleaning/adjusting the two pots on the top of the board, R15 and R16 which are for sound and voice volume, and now I get no speech. Test button just beeps with no "complete" and no speech in game. At one point I must've gotten one of them too high, sounded overloaded/distorted even though I didn't have the main vol control that high. After that, no speech. I just didn't think adjusting two pots for volume control could do anything rotten like this. I can still hear an effect in volume turning either one so the pots seem okay.
What various things could cause the speech to be totally gone but otherwise the sounds are still working? I'm hoping not that voice chip and maybe something simpler like in the amplification. I have never recapped this board so could a cap have blown that would *only* affect speech? If so I will order a recap kit and hope for the best since it needs it anyway. I'd just finished tweaking a ton of things on my game and dialing it in too so now I'm really down in the dumps. I knew I shouldn't have fooled around with those damn pots!

I was grasping at straws checking it out some more. As I said it seemed like both pots were good since they were still having an audible effect in volume when turned, didn't sound noisy, but zero speech. So I tried holding the test button down (so it would keep repeating the test beep(s)), and turned R16 all the way up and down a few times and suddenly at one point the voice popped back in loud and clear! Voice is working again. Perhaps I do just have an issue with R16 even though I sprayed deoxit on both pots and turned several times to clean them. R16 is acting like it may have a 'dead zone' that it simply wasn't in before I adjusted it. Will do some more checking on that pot. Whew, I'm not bummed out anymore.

I pulled R16 (speech volume), it's totally shot. It's a 10K but most resistance I can read at either end is around 20 to 40 ohms. The middle 95% it just reads open. I'll order two new ones to replace R15 also. And new caps while I'm at it.

I ripped open the pot, the resistive element is totally gone except on either end. Surprised I haven't had trouble before I messed with it!

Putting in a new voice pot fixed it. I also recapped the board but man it was a disaster. First Gottlieb board I ever recapped. I ripped up a few traces and thru-holes that I had to patch up with snips of wire. Same way I've recapped Bally and Williams boards with zero problems, heat the hole and pull the cap out, but the caps seemed really tight in these Gtb thru holes. If I ever need do recap another Gottlieb board I'll have to find out a better way first.

Yeah thanks that sounds like what I should do the next time, being that they were good-sized leads and is harder for them to bend as you pull them out, I didn't do that. The first half of them came out okay but then it got nasty. Thanks