What's your time worth?

Central Park is a good game, but even all done, they go for 800-1000 typically. There are plenty out there still.

Since they do seem to pop up, maybe set it aside until another appears that has an intact score motor board, but bad backglass/playfield, and combine to make one nice one?

The playfield looks savable. If the cab and the rest are nice, and it's just the score motor board, there's probably a donor CP out there that's worse off. If it were a super rare game, then maybe one could justify redoing the wiring harness, but from the pictures, you'd almost need a donor game to get enough loom to work with.

Or.... use this as a SS conversion experiment. Leave the playfield all EM, and run it with a processor instead.

Switch to SS via Arduino. Or sell me the PF and I'll do it. My students are loving their Arduino based Aspen.

More power to yah. Good luck , that is a bummer.

Kill it so that others may live. I call dibs on the metal star posts.

Marcus

Ken, it looks like an extreme case of time, effort and money. Is this a machine that is worthy? Most would say no. Good luck with this one.

Rats nest. Solid title but unless it is your grail you will be upside down in this machine from the start.
Mostly time invested so really up to you and what you want to do with life.

The up side, you know which relay is not working correctly. All of them.
What a project.

Rats nest seem to be on a uptrend lately. Personally i would save it if you can come up with teh wiring harness

--jeff

tough for me to say this, but i'd pass on the fix and use it for a parts machine...

Thats a big giant mess...

and the PF looks rough to boot...

If it had a cherry PF i would start panning an attack, but its just a pile...

i would assume the Back glass is not 100% either ?

+ i think Hurdy Gurdy is the superior game oever CP...

Better rules and more fun..

To bad for this little Gottlieb

Can you post more info on this? Sounds like an interesting read.

EDIT: Ok, I found your post from a few weeks ago.

Very cool!

parts for other games

Will always stink kill it

If you part, I'll buy the 5" bell.

Sheesh, this is as bad as I've ever seen. Unfortunately, this is a parts game for sure.

Wow, that one is a mess... With that level of damage I would say just part it and see how many games can be fixed from what you salvage.

I hate parting a game but this one is too far gone to justify the labor to fix. And you will never get the smell out of it...

If you want to dispose of the cabinet I can take it to the bonfire later this month...

My Atari Video Pinball control panel was totally packed with a mouse nest and enough mouse droppings to fill my bucket vac... The smell was so bad I nearly lost my lunch a few times trying to clean up the mess. Good thing I have a spare control panel assembly from a water damaged cabinet that I can swap over... The rest of the game was fairly clean and did not have any wire damage...

-- Shawn

Kill it and part it out definitely

Kill, never liked 2" flippers games anyway!

After that statement SAVE IT!!!!

I prefer selling it to Nicki for his EM to SS project.

Kill and salvage here have the same meaning.

EM to SS, cool concept!

Well... I don't really agree with that either - but Nicki wants to turn a nice Flipper Fair into an SS - so instead of that, this Central Park would be ideal!!!

It's my opinion that there's no need to turn a working EM into SS; trashed SS and trashed EMs are sadly plentiful and converting either to a different SS control mechanism (in the name of science) is easily justified and doesn't take any working machines out of circulation. This assumes you're doing this conversion just to learn how to do it (science) and to get a non-working machine working again.

That said, if some one owns the machine they can do whatever they want to it. If the OP tossed the whole machine to the curb right as the garbage truck was headed to his house, he'd only get thumbs down if he told us about it.

If the wiring to the PF is still intact (you don't need harnesses), I'd consider an Arduino/SS conversion. I say that having not studied the schematics or having to deal with the smell (which must be gross). I'd toss the cab as is never be okay with that thing in my house knowing its past (ignorance is bliss).

Once you head down the dark road of a Arduino based ressurection, you can modernize and break every traditional rule. For example you can use a 24v power supply with sufficient amperage from a laptop for playfield coils then buy/build a voltage divider to get 5v (or down to 12v) to power the arduino, switch matrix and lamps. It's a fun project.

If the wiring to the playfield is no longer intact (I don't mean the harness, I mean wires are chewed up along their runs) I wouldn't bother using it for this and I'd part it out.

Hey all,first time here.here's some pics of a game I saved a couple of years ago.not quite as bad as the one in question but was quite a project none the less.I think it's a shame parting any game out cause once there gone there gone.Sing Along before005.jpgSing Along before001.jpgCopy of Sing Along before003.jpgIMG_1504.JPGIMG_1503.JPGIMG_1502.JPG

NICE work! Did you paying the PF yourself?

Wow, that's too far gone. Hate to say it but, clean and part it out and hopefully help others out with the pieces.

I owned a Central Park for over a year and it's a tough game, imho. Not as much fun as the Atlantis that took its place.

@novaguy... that is one IMPRESSIVE job...

That's actually another PF that I got from a guy in Buffalo.it's been touched up and clearcoated.

If you do end up parting it out, I would be interested in the credit wheel (assuming it is OK). Restoring a Sing Along (not nearly as bad off as the one above) where some previous owner removed the credit wheel. Thanks.

Was gonna say something like hardest pin ever created,but I only had the Pinball Arcade to base that on.
I'm sure a lot of Pinheads nearing or over 60 honed their skills on this one.

kill but recycle parts

Looks like the JP I got for free. I am a strong believer in never scrap a pin.

so your fixing her...

I am proud of you taking on that wiring mess...

keep us posted this will be a GREAT resurrection thread !

I have met a guy in MI that this game would be perfect for. He has rebuilt the wiring for a main relay board previously.

We will probably make a deal for him to buy my Gold Strike wired playfield and back box relay board and he will have to find a main relay board to copy.

If you can find the person with access and the appropriate skillset this game could be saved.

Mike O.

Sorry, I don't know the answer to the transformer but I'm sure will chime in.

Been meaning to ask based on those beautiful pictures.....where did you pick that up? Vision in my head is outside some old pizza joint sitting next to the dumpster for 35 years.

I looked at a few schematics and this is what I found:

B-6183:
Big Shot, Far Out, Hi Dolly, Jack in the Box/JJ, Mayfair, Sing Along, Target Alpha, Solar City

B-3235:
Card Whiz, El Dorado, High Hand, Jacks Open, Quick Draw, Sky Jump.

B-10904:
2001

B-10970
Drop A Card

These of course, are all the 115V versions (not 230V). My guess is probably about the amount of power for 6V lamps as the Multiplayers would have more lamps in the head. But not sure why Quick Draw would be in there?

So, I am thinking the 6183 might be the better one to have. HOWEVER, if it is about the lighting, you might find the 6V to be slightly higher if used in a game with considerably less total GI lights.

FWIW, I checked the '68 Parts Catalog, and all the part numbers for the various transformers just list "Transformer", with no further info.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

Between pinhead52 and novaguy, I am very impressed with the work you two have taken on or finished up. I thought parts for sure. As a few have already said, always better imo to save anything you can.
Also, that is amazing that you got the original envelope Gottlieb sent to this operator in 1966!
GL!

If possible, try to flip it to somebody who will restore it.

IMO, there are enough crappy 4 player 2" flipper games to keep supplying parts for a long time. I do understand that not every game is the right project for everyone, but Central Park is a decent game, and I'm sure somebody will feel up to the challenge.

Just make sure they aren't buying it with the intention of parting it anyway.

BTW, I HAVE parted games. They were 2 or 4 player games that had already been partially parted anyway. It is a dirty job. It is a lot of work and after you sell off the first 2-3 high dollar parts, you are pretty much left with keeping the rest in your "stash" or taking pictures, putting on flea bay etc. You really don't make much money off selling pop bumpers and steppers on ebay.

So the: "what is your time worth" cuts both ways. Time to part and sell or time to restore. The least amount of time might be to offer it up as a heavy duty project.