(Topic ID: 267345)
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Eight Ball Deluxe
Bally, 1981
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Quoted from yfz450:Light baffles look great!
They do! Thanks for your help! And thanks again to Lovef2k for the wood board. What would I do without pinside ?
Quoted from Mathazar:As for the 4th display...if memory serves, Q18 drives that upper left segment for all digits. It may be as simple as replacing that transistor or, if that doesn't resolve it, replacing the 4543 Decoder chip.
I just received my GPE order... I replaced the Q18 transistor... still missing the same segment... So I replaced the decoder chip... Still missing the segment 
Arg!
Pic85 (resized).JPGUnfortunately I think I found the source of the problem... Corrosion... This segment is powered via the last pin of the display (39)... And you can see on the pin the turquoise type of color we all hate. I believe this is in the glass, so no way to clean this up
Too bad as the other 4 displays are really clean and flawless...
Pic86 (resized).JPG
Carneys Point Township, NJ
1 month later
37 days with no update, wow!
I guess September was pretty busy, with kids going back to school... work never calming down, and other pinball machines to take care of!
But back to EBD... Next step is to take care of the main mechs (bumpers, flippers, drop targets). These are not really working reliably at the moment... definitely need to be rebuilt.
Honestly it's the first time I work on a machine which was maintained by such "innovative" people. The flippers and slings are good examples: crazy type of screws, all different! With half of them going THROUGH the playfield Different types of nuts, bolts, some models I never saw in pinballs... Even at one place some glue to hold things together!
I'm OK with this type of wear:
Pic91 (resized).JPG
It means "this pinball was played a lot"
I'm not OK with this type of wear:
Pic92 (resized).JPG
It means "I did not have the right type of screws so I used some others I found in my toolbox, unfortunately they were a bit longer than the originals"
Look at these screws :
Pic90 (resized).JPG
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That's not wear by the pistols, that's straight up damage. Sucks when people do that. I had a Seawitch once that had similar damage.
The correct screw for the flipper mounts is a #8 X 1/2 hex head screw. The same as the drop target banks, slings etc.
FYI, some things under the pf have a smaller screw such as the saucer eject and some switch mounting brackets. That should be a #6 x 7/16 hex head.
If you need screws lmk.
And yes, September was a blur for me as well.
So... the flippers have to be rebuilt... no question here.
rust, missing parts, bent EOS... and I guess grease... beurk!
Pic95 (resized).JPG
I was planning to keep the yellowish bats, as my goal is to play pinball, not to have a pristine machine, but I changed my mind, they really look dirty and some of the stains cannot be washed or polished out...
Pic94 (resized).JPG
I decided to follow Vid's advice and rebuild the flipper with the previous generation mechs.
However, when I ordered from pbresource, I learned the hard way that a slight difference in a part number can get you a very different part 
(my mistake)
I ordered BLY-A3714 (long) plungers instead of BLY-A3714-3 (short plungers)... So I had to cut these EM plungers to make them work for me (too impatient to wait for another order to come in!)
Quoted from matiou:I decided to follow Vid's advice and rebuild the flipper with the previous generation mechs.
However, when I ordered from pbresource, I learned the hard way that a slight difference in a part number can get you a very different part (my mistake)
I ordered BLY-A3714 (long) plungers instead of BLY-A3714-3 (short plungers)... So I had to cut these EM plungers to make them work for me (too impatient to wait for another order to come in!)
[quoted image]
[quoted image]
When life hands you lemons
Put that lemons head in a vice and cut him in half like he owes you a large sum of mafia money!!!
Another issue happened... this time with the third flipper. It was literally impossible to take out. I tried hard, with many tools, but there was no way, the bat shaft was stuck in the mechanism for good. I guess I could have hit it hard with the hammer, or blast it with wd40... but would not have been very good for my playfield...
So I had to disintegrate the bat from the playfield side, using dremel and cutting pliers! and I got the job done 
In the meantime I found a couple of Pinside threads with people having the same issue... Sometimes it feels good not to be the only one!
Pic100 (resized).JPG
Quoted from matiou:So I had to disintegrate the bat from the playfield side, using dremel and cutting pliers!
I had that happen once and I was able to get a hacksaw blade onto the shaft from the bottom. Your method looks like more fun.
1 week later
Quoted from matiou:Crimping... Molexing... This is quite some work! So many connectors to do! I guess I'll do MPU and Solenoid boards and stop there for now![quoted image]
When I restored my EBD, I had all the harnesses sitting on a workbench and it still took me 8 hours to repin everything. I did 4 hours one day and 4 the next. My back couldn't take doing them all at once!
I actually find it relaxing if I'm able to pull the harness all the way out and do it on my workbench with some tunes blaring in the background. Hunched over a cabinet and trying to do it with the harness still installed...yikes. Unless it's just one connector you're trying to get done, that's the job form hell!
Quoted from Bryan_Kelly:When I restored my EBD, I had all the harnesses sitting on a workbench and it still took me 8 hours to repin everything. I did 4 hours one day and 4 the next. My back couldn't take doing them all at once!
4 hours in a row! that's dedication! congrats i don't think i could do that... and in my case I crimp while I'm standing, next to the backbox... so yes, it kills the back!
Quoted from Mathazar:I actually find it relaxing if I'm able to pull the harness all the way out and do it on my workbench with some tunes blaring in the background. Hunched over a cabinet and trying to do it with the harness still installed...yikes. Unless it's just one connector you're trying to get done, that's the job form hell!
in fact, doing good crimps, and hearing the little "click" when inserting in the connector, is quite satisfying!
and yes... i guess i should have re-pinned my connectors when the harness was still out
It's time to attack "the beast"
It works... but not very smoothly... and sometimes does not reset completely. Likely due to rust and dirt.
Luckily this assembly does not appear to have been "serviced" much (hear "hacked" much), as opposed to the flippers or slings. All the screws and washers are there, and all the right size!
I found where the resistance comes from when resetting:
pic104 (resized).jpg
This arm does not rotate freely at all, it's super stiff... So I guess I could have just disassembled this part, cleaned it up and be good for my "player" machine... but would not be reasonable... this whole thing needs de-rust and clean up.
Here is an exploded view like I like them:
pic105 (resized).jpg
As you can see I "molexed" the switches to make the assembly/disassembly easier in the future.
Quoted from Mathazar:Nothing a few days in the tumbler won't fix.
I don't have a tumbler But the rust on these was quite easy to remove...
After a bit of steel wool scrubbin' and some dish soap:
pic107 (resized).jpg
Quite happy with the result.
Quoted from matiou:I don't have a tumbler But the rust on these was quite easy to remove...
Before:
[quoted image]
After a bit of steel whool scrubbin' and some dish soap:
[quoted image]
Quite happy with the result.
You must have some killer dish soap!
I like Evaporust.
Quoted from Lovef2k:You must have some killer dish soap!
I like Evaporust.
The steel wool gets easily rid of this type of light surface rust... then cleaning up with dish soap or mean green removes dirt and rust residue...
Quoted from matiou:The steel wool gets easily rid of this type of light surface rust... then cleaning up with dish soap or mean green removes dirt and rust residue...
Ahh I missed the steel wool you posted.
This is such an awesome thread. Thanks for posting your progress. I love it when these disasters are brought lovingly back fro the dead
Quoted from mark532011:This is such an awesome thread. Thanks for posting your progress. I love it when these disasters are brought lovingly back fro the dead
Thanks! And it feels great to see this machine, little by little, looking more and more like an Eight Ball Deluxe Never been that close to be able to play a game!
What about the sling shots ? Extremely dirty. I'm pretty sure someone did put some grease on them at some point... This plastic arm is supposed to be white...
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And now... especially for those of you who like nice hacks... The screws holding one of the coils stop were maintained in place by...... a blob of hot glue... yes!
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It's fairly common to see stripped screws or holes on the sling shot main body for the coil stops. I'm pretty sure Marco has replacement mounts for these.
1 week later
Ok at this point I'm more or less done with the under-playfield toys... I still want to change some light sockets, but I'll do that later.
Time to populate the topside.
If you remember the first posts of the thread, my plastics are in a pretty bad shape. Like very bad. Like I've never seen that bad The picture below was taken AFTER clean up!
I bought from a fellow pinsider some second hand plastics, leftover from a restore, which will be enough for now. I also got in the package an apron, a shooter lane cover, both a lot nicer than mine. Some plastics are a little bit cracked... but I'll live with it. It's day and light compared to mine.
The set of plastic is definitely usable... Except for 4 of the transparent ones, which are either missing, broken, or with holes too wide for the posts.
I decided to build my own... first time I'll do that, and I'm not very well equipped to cut plastic, so not too sure about the result... low risk anyway as PETG is cheap.
First step, tracing the plastics with a sharpie on the PETG protective layer:
Pic121 (resized).jpg
Then I did put together a plastic cutting set up, using my drywall cut-out tool. Definitely not ideal! At the beginning I wasn't sure if it would break or melt the PETG while cutting... it did not.
Pic122 (resized).jpg
I managed to get rough shapes... that I finished using a file and some sand paper... and... not bad!
Pic123 (resized).jpg
Good progress on the top side! New rubbers, new skirts for the bumpers... still need to align flippers.
Pic124 (resized).jpg
Don't ask me why the 3 plastic lane guides are red and not blue... that's how it came to me
I added the blue ones on my next order list... same for 2 posts that are transparent instead of blue (can you spot them ?).
No big deal for the player.
Everything's there!
Pic125 (resized).jpg
I had to use washers for the big plastics as the post holes were too big (remember, these are used plastics, and I guess the removal of the bell posts enlarged the holes). But overall it looks OK to me. Anyway it's good to have not-too-perfect plastics, they match well with my far-from-perfect playfield 
Quoted from Mathazar:Awesome progress. When do you think you'll throw the power switch and see what happens?
I turned it on of course , but for a very short time! Locked coil on one of the drop target... weird because everything was fine last time I turned on to check lights, switches and coils... but yes, I confirm: one of the coil transistor is shorted. let's heat up the soldering iron... Luckily I have an old half populated solenoid board I can steal components from.
Yep, that was it... Q14 replacement on the solenoid board fixed my locked solenoid!
So... couple of games... a lot of switch adjustments... and a broken drop target!
I've been told, when repairing old drop target assemblies with yellowed targets, that all targets HAD TO be changed because they break easily. I did not listen... and the "2X" broke after 2 games. Ok, ok, I will order new targets. But for now I will use a spare one I have to get back into play.
Pic126 (resized).jpg
If you think about it, in this game the "2X" is the one taking the most violent/frequent hits... so maybe the others will be ok for a little while
Quoted from matiou:couple of games
Nice work !
Sounds like your fan base gets a victory-lap "first-game -- but will it work?" video pretty soon!
-mof
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