Quoted from Billc479:Those donuts are called 5/16" rubber rings. You can get the silicon ones at Marco or Pinball Life.
Vid has a document on how to change the flippers. Go to Vid's Guide to Upgrading/Rebuilding Flippers, post # 520. Rebuilding Bally Linear Flippers. I did this, and have no problems hitting any targets. Be aware some purists will ride you for changing to this.
What were your thoughts on changing the post location?
Good Luck
It is usually an interesting debate regarding making most any changes from the stock machine. I can see the "purist's" position as to "No, that's how it was designed." But there can often be extenuating circumstances . . . and I have mixed feelings on the subject. With my Williams Jackpot (the 4-player edition of Klondike), the stock flippers are just not strong enough to make the shot of getting the ball up to either of the saucer holes at top. Except once in a rare while, almost by some rare and uncontrolled ricochet. That's a deficit, because making both saucers on a single ball will light the high points pop bumper, which is otherwise never lit. The result is a HUGE opportunity that never gets presented. And I'm doubting that there is any Vid-style fix for Williams flippers of that era. (I'd really like to be wrong about that.)
One of my primary dissatisfactions with the history of a certain large regional tourney was that the tournament directors always futzed around with the games, detuning them, removing key pf pieces etc., in an effort to slow down the top level players and make things a lot harder for them. In my view, this process screws things up tremendously for middling to lower-skill players -- and I'm middling, at best -- skewing things greatly to their disadvantage. It's not really comparable to a handicap in golf, which is a lot more logical. So, I'm not in the habit of rewarding things where the odds are stacked against me unfairly. Covid made all of this moot for a couple years, but even with the resumption of that tournament, I'm not rushing back.
On the flipside, you could make a reasonable argument that "improving" certain game functions is skewing things in the opposite direction.
As to Centaur, I'm thinking that Dakine747's solution in post # 1580 is by far the easier and more elegant one, the one that I'd be inclined to try first. The flipper rebuild is something I would consider, but likely outside my DIY skillset, so I'd probably have to have it done by my regular tech. Since I'm not putting this game into tournaments, the decision becomes more about making the game more accessible and enjoyable *to me.* (It's kind of odd to me that my best score to date was on a routed Centaur -- also in stock setup -- years before I ever owned one. The best I've managed at home thus far is 3 mil., just clearing the Level 2 of Replay.) With that flipper fix, I might have some concern about increased propensity for airballs, including those that bounce off of the glass, or possibly breaking certain plastic pieces more often. On the other hand, I have put away a decent stock of spares, which is something I generally try to do.