Never too late to join the club, eh?

Just put in LEDs in my JD, reviving it from the dead and forgotten pins in my small collection.

I've always had an issue with it though, the ball keeps getting stuck on top of the Sewer, trapped between the Sewer plastic and the locking ring. So I'm wondering how you guys keep the ball from getting stuck there. I know there are at least two things keeping this from happening:

1. The Black Out-ramp ball deflector
2. The wire on top of the Sewer plastics.

My game is missing the wire, and the deflector blocks the view of the Black Out jackpot light pretty badly when mounted upwards, which I understand is the correct way to mount it? And the ball gets stuck on top of the Sewer from time to time even with the deflector in place.

So I reckon the wire is the only way to go.

I see pictures of the game with only the wire, only the deflector and sometimes both. Does anyone know what's the "correct" setup here?

And does anyone have the measurements for this wire form on top of the Sewer? It wouldn't be a huge job for me to make a replacement, if I knew the dimensions for it.

Cheers.