This is on Williams Heat Wave, 1964.

The ball chute has a gate that stays open to let balls be put into play, for as long as there is no score. Once a point is scored, the solenoid turns off, closing the gate so you only get to play 5 balls.

The solenoid buzzes like crazy.

One thread says to loosen the screws, turn it on, and "re seat" it tightening the screws. That is supposed to let the plunger find its happy place. It didn't work. The screws are set in metal and screwing them back in while the thing is buzzing didn't change the angle of what they are holding in place. (Ever tried to screw in metal screws with a metal screwdriver on a powered electromagnet? Its like one of those drunk tester arcade games.)

Cleaning the plunger and the sleeve didn't help.

The plunger looks rough in the picture, but it feels smooth.

The butt end of the plunger seems level, but slightly below the casing. The stub on the stop seems slightly concave, and it is slightly below its casing.

Where do I go from here?

Thanks !

undrdog

ball gate coil (resized).JPG

There’s copper down in there, but it looks piece of copper with the button on top, rather than a ring wrapped around the button.

AB7773DA-3E93-4B3B-8B51-603C959933FE (resized).jpeg

I traded out the coil stop for the one on the right flipper, because I was going to clean the flipper plunger & sleeve, anyway. Right away, I could see that the coil stop on the gate was worn down a lot more than the flipper one. (I'm still new at this.) Switching them out greatly reduced the buzzing. Adding washers to the gate assembly so it wasn't as loose helped, too, but it still buzzed some.

So, I guess I need a new coil stop and a sleeve and / or a plunger.

A newbie question-- what keeps the coil from coming all uncoiled when I pull out the sleeve to replace it? Its in there pretty tight and I'm scared to ruin the coil. Any tips for getting it right the first time?

undrdog

Ordered parts from PBR. Put the gate assembly back together with the old parts until the new parts get here. No more buzzing. Turned the fool machine on and off and started a new game three times. Quiet as a mouse (almost).

Maybe I should go back to playing with Lego.