Well that is easy. Your spoon leaf switch has to large of a gap.
As for them locking on.
It is very likely magnetization. The pop bumpers are one shots that do not lock on. Try to activate a "good pop" with your finger and keep the switch closed you will see what i mean. The coil will fire and return it will not lock on. Once the switch is closed it has to open again to get the pop to activate again.
So while you have the PF up and you are adjusting the spoon. You will need to add a stripe of copper over the coil stop. I have tried other things but this is quick and easy and works the best. First time I did this I used copper wheat penny hammered out a little thinner and glued to top of coil stop, then trimed. That worked fine but was more work.

If the pop bumper driver boards have not been updated and rebuilt, then now is the time to do so.

Rottendog Amusements sells new pop bumper boards at a very reasonable price, I think $17. You have to buy through of his distrubutors.

The original pop bumper boards are so easy to repair if needed and hold up just as well as those aftermarket boards. None of my original boards (and I have quite a few of them) have been so bad that they needed replacement.

For the OP. If the pop bumper appears sluggish to return to the up position, perhaps the score switch is on the wrong side of the insulating yoke. It should push the score switch closed when the coil is activated, not push it open after activation of the coil is over.

Steve

Check the two rods that go down through the playfield. On a few Sys80 pop bumpers I've had a similar problem when one of the rods was cracked at the start of the threads. It seemed fine moving it by hand but when the solenoid yanks it hard it pulls only on one rod and twists and binds instead of moving straight down.

Check your switch gap and making sure your pop driver boards have been updated. Clean those switches too by pinching a business card between them and sliding the card. The abrasiveness of the business card will safely clean the contact points. Do not sand or file them!

As far as them sticking is concerned, I'd almost guarantee that residual magnetism is the culprit.
When I ran into this with my BH, I tried just about everything to correct the problem.
The fix is actually very easy.
Your coil stops are magnetized.
Contact PBR (pinball resource) and buy new coil mounting brackets (which have the coil stops riveted on.)
Once you replace these you will find that your pops no longer "stick"
I tried to drill out the old stops and just replace them (reusing the old bracket) but that didn't solve it.
I also tried to "demagnetize" them without any success.
The new coil brackets are relatively inexpensive. All four on my upper playfield were sticking. Since I replaced them a couple of years ago, the problem has not returned.

Can someone please more clearly define this magnetization issue for me? I am in the middle of my Haunted House restoration and I have not encountered this issue....yet. I have read many online repair manuals but have not heard about this issue? How does it occur? Is it a grounding issue? Can someone direct me to an online detailed prevention such as this copper wire fix?

Not wire, sheet / strip of Cu. I do not believe i have seen online detailed, documented info. It is a way to do it quick, cheap, and easy. Instead of buying a new bracket and coil stop each time. It is weird but true, if you take your HH pops apart even if working fine now, clean and put back together there is a good chance you will see this sticking happen afterwards. Steve Young gave me this tip/trick many years ago.

So please elaborate on this "trick". I tried everything that I could find online to get rid of the magnetism but the only thing that worked for me was the new bracket/stop
Assembly.

Very simple. Just picture the ohm symbol in your head. You just need some Cu sheet stock. Mine is .0008"or.0010". Cut piece about .25"x3.00". with coil off, center the strip of copper across the top of stop and bend with your fingers down the sides of the stop and re assemble. I did a quick paint diagram but failed to load. sorry.

Ok I get it. Makes sense since copper cannot be magnetized.
In a pinch you can use a small ball of tissue paper that acts as a barrier between the plunger and the stop.
This is will only work temporarily though. If mine ever become magnetized again, i will do the copper trick.
Funny how some games never seem to suffer from this issue. I've owned two system80 games and they both had the issue.

You could use the self-stick copper foil tape they use in stained glass work.

^^^Nice.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10561

Don't know how long soft copper will last vs the steel plunger, but at $2.95, it's a cheap experiment.

copper foil tape.jpg

yeh, at 3mil thk, probably won't take many strikes to wear through.

Put it on the stop and plunger.

And I guess you could also add layers, if needed.

I just worry that the adhesive will creep and gum up the sleeve at some point with too many layers.

Like I said, its a cheap test, so hopefully everyone will post their results.

Maybe better to just get thin sheet and stupid glue it.

The first one was an old wheat penny hammered a bit thinner and super glued to stop and trimmed with a dremel. It worked fine but seemed like to much work compared to the strip method.

If you wanted to glue something, a copper washer would be easy to obtain, less work that grinding pennies .

http://www.harborfreight.com/80-piece-copper-washer-assortment-67526.html#.Uxuj2YVFpdg

It is just what i had at the time. Ya know when you get an idea and just have to try it right away. Well as soon as i finished my order I grabbed the first thing copper i could think of.

The score switch is the switch furthest from the pf. On BH the long leaf rests on top of the insulating yoke and closes when the pop fires. Check to make sure that is set up correct and when pop goes down the switch closes.

There was just a thread about pop bumper scoring switch problems, a lot of good ideas, perhaps your answer is there?

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gottlieb-pop-bumper#post-1502429

Steve