I joined the club this weekend! Bought my first pin in 25 years to go with my TZ. Nice to have another Lawlor game in the house.

I'm building a LED list, planning to buy from Comet.

I've made this LED planning spreadsheet world-writable for now in case anybody wants to help me with my homework.

Gave it a preliminary wipe and wax and earned a high score.

Issues to work through:

• Broken fault and trip ramps. Ordered from Marco.
• Several broken plastics. Ordered new set from CPR.
• Both inlanes have wear down to the wood. Used a cliffy I had intended for my TZ inlane on the right hand one. Need some more cliffys.
• A few inserts need fresh decals. Not sure how to solve that but I guess decals are available.
• Batteries are already off the board. Need to adhere the battery box to the cabinet, it's just hanging there.
• Maybe a half dozen lamps are out. Won't replace before LED project.
• Lots of mylar "ghosting": it's separated from a bunch of inserts in the main playfield area. Don't know what to do about this.
• Two gimpy legs. New bolts and leg plates ordered from Marco.
• The metal behind the eject hole had ruined the plastic over it. Removed it and bent it back down. That's probably a temporary fix.
• Slingshot plastics intact. Installed clear washers.
• After about an hour of play I think the CPU board crashed. I continued to hear music and all the high voltage stuff went dead. I think that's the blanking circuit, designed to prevent a bad problem from getting worse. The previous owner said he had replaced some bridge rectifiers. I'm confident this is a well-understood sys11 problem but I don't know yet exactly what I need to do.

Is there a source for repro playfields I'm not aware of? CPR is sold out. What's this talk of a "gold" playfield?

Is there still a source for the building mod?

I mean realistic or not, it’s worth what people pay for it. I’m a bit defensive I suppose because one showed up in my town on CL for 2400. I offered 1800 and he was so annoyed he delisted it. A couple of weeks later I hit him up and took it for 2200. You wouldn’t be impressed: less than ideal cabinet, imperfect backglass, two broken ramps, serious wear above inlanes, worn decals, busted plastic, ghosted Mylar, incandescent bulbs. But it’s a Lawlor and it’s not going to be on the market again for decades.

That's a lovely topper. Can't wait to hear what you think of the new speakers. I've ordered a pinsound card and a speaker upgrade for my TZ but I don't know how much sense it'll make for my ES. My replacement ramps arrived but one came broken. Marco is of course taking care of it. Once my LEDs arrive from Comet I'll install the new ramps and bulbs at the same time. Meanwhile I've been playing it nonstop. High score 35M on a three ball game in factory mode with a ton of extra balls.

Here's a few minutes looking at my ES after a LED upgrade, ramp replacement and general touch-up. As Djshakes mentions above, the ramps form Marco didn't fit perfectly but they're still better than what was there. Drilled new holes in the PF to accommodate. I made the center ramp fit by drilling a new top hole where the ramp connects to the inlane, about 1/4" north of the existing screw hole. It's a tight fit but thank goodness nothing ruptured locking everything down!

My video in post #843 has this. I made a spreadsheet planning all the bulbs and it’s linked under the YouTube video. AMA!

Pedleboy did you ever solve this? Seems like jhanley has the only answer. Here's what mine looks like, resulting in a stuck ball until the fault closes, robbing the player of the lock:

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I can’t find them now either, and scanning through my order didn’t help. But “matrix splitter” can turn one matrix output from a GI bayonet into two or three. The comet team is very responsive via e-mail.

Note two other things from my video: 1) cyan is the wrong choice for the blue row in the institute. Use blue. 2) don’t overdo it with the star post lights. If they’re close to the player and directly visible, they’re a bit much. Consider getting a couple of inline dimmers.

Last thing: I learned the hard way that the bolts that attach the star posts and other fixtures to the t-nuts under the playfield tend to bend over time, and so they can break when you unscrew them. Good to have some of these on hand. I didn’t so I improvised something at Home Depot. I’m sure Marco has ‘em.

Can’t wait to see your results!

Thanks to the suggestion from jhanley I got some help from a buddy with a welder. We filled in the space, ground it flat, then dremeled in a new slot. Earthshaker fault problem fixed!
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