I flipped the bracket right above those targets over. Not exactly pretty, but it provides a little awning that seems to stop the glass strikes.

Hey everyone - I've been working through a refresh of a Simpsons cabinet for a bit. Everything is working well, so now I'm in the "details" stage electronically. Far from the "details" stage on the cabinet itself.

I've noticed that with my game, I can very clearly HEAR the attract mode lamp flashing patterns in the speakers. It's a light "buzz. buzz. buzz. buuUuuUuuUuuzzz" that PERFECTLY matches the GI lightshow pattern. When a game starts, sound is perfectly normal and the rhythmic buzzing disappears.

I've checked over all of my grounds and wiring on and around the sound board, everything looks ok. I haven't capped the sound board - didn't know if that was a normal thing to do on these game.

I wasn't sure if this was a common issue, or if I have something strange going on - has anyone encountered this? I tried to search the forum, but my term combination may have missed something.

For reference, here is my refresh thread: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/data-east-the-simpsons-refresh-and-repair

Anyone have/know where I can find an intact pop bumper bracket in yellow in the USA? All I can find are in Europe or Australia. Marco has blue, and PBL has blue and black. I'll go black, with the intention of going back, if I can't find yellow immediately.

I see there's one "Alvin G" assembly on ebay that has the right bracket, so that's truly worst case. I'd prefer to buy just the bracket though.

Rebuilding the pops on my cabinet and one of my brackets lost two ears when I pulled it off the playfield...

EDIT: FIRST one I saw on ebay was like $80 for a complete assembly. Changed up my search terms and found a near complete NOS assembly for $30 shipped. I'm good with that!

Do y'all install the post between the flippers meant to block STDM shots? If so, what size and thread is that? It's not listed in the manual under playfield parts.

Glancing through the thread, it looks like the majority of owners that restore or refresh one of these cabinets DO install that post.

Don't know if these help, but here's what I have

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To me it looks like you almost "lost" a hole during clear. The two holes in red should be your screw holes for the ball guide that covers the VUK by the bear.

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I'm in the exact same boat with the "green" VUK after a rebuild using a new Stern coil, new springs, VUK cap. I'll try different alignments today, but mine will NEVER make it around the bend - it only makes it about halfway up the initial straight vertical part. When I initially took the assembly apart, the previous owner had some electrical tape bunched up on the coil stop, lifting the vuk plunger arm up a bit. Not sure if that's a clue or not. I did put a little piece of foam on the rubber bumper to see if that helped - nope.

It did work fine when I picked up the machine a few months ago. It stopped working a few weeks ago and since I was tearing down the cabinet for decals I figured I'd just go ahead and rebuild with the playfield out.

This helped for sure. I think ultimately it was more of a mis-alignment of the brackets that hold the actual coil in place - not the bracket that holds the assembly to the playfield. That is to say that after trimming my spring and messing with the coil mounts on the main bracket for a half hour, I have a consistent vuk!

While I'm posting... can anyone tell me what the insert lights on the front of the cabinet near Homer's feet actually indicate? I never see them do anything "different" beyond flashing along with the rest of the playfield lighting. Didn't see a definition in the manual.

Yeah, I trimmed the larger spring that returns the plunger to its correct position - that's the larger one. Like I said too - it was also a lot of messing with alignment on the coil mounts and on the wireform itself.