More progress and notes for others.

Install drop targets before the pop bumpers. Cannot get the drill or other tools in there otherwise. I'm finding some of the dimples on underside are in good position, others, not so much. Some tools that are helpful in reinstall, drill bit extender (sometimes it works, sometimes you have to take things apart again
), different socket extensions. Using drill as much as possible to drive stuff in, just going nice and easy.

Have many other projects going on (not pinball) so this is going slow.

Here's latest pics.

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Thanks for the questions. For the PCBs' I dropped them in my ultrasonic cleaner with 50/50 mix mean green / water.
I did new braid and left the old one in place, made it easy to follow.
I hammered in the bumper support screws, at first I did the nut thing, but that ended up turning the screws and collapsing the fins, so then I bought another set and hammered them in.
I have a small hammer, and was real careful when I got close to the surface. When I first tried hammering, the screw bent, so make sure you hit straight.

I've received a couple of questions on the wire braid I used. I bought 15 feet and used only 9 feet of it. I got mine from http://pinrestore.com/Supplies.html It's 18 gauge tinned braid.

Today's lesson learned. I love the tumbler and how things come out, but putting plunger link assemblies into the tumbler means that walnut shells can get in between the link and the plunger, requiring you to take them apart to get everything moving freely again. (which can be a pain).

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Took a break due to lots of other activities. I've moved the playfield out of the dining room onto the rotisserie. Today's pain was to realize I don't have great pictures from the lower portion of the underside of the table. (If anyone has some great one's I can use them.) Especially around the ball return area.

I'll add some pictures tomorrow.

I specifically need some pictures of this area (highlighted by the red box)

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Finally started working again. Currently working on the wiring harness. Cleaning it, replaced spoons for pop bumpers and relplaced a couple of targets. The machine had liquid damage and I found a couple of rusty switches and mounts. The mounts are in the tumbler, the switches seem to only have surface rust that I cleaned up.

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I ordered the screws, I also ordered some of the posts and will use them where I can, but I have the screws if needed.

Today's lesson in pinball restoration. There have been a lot of posts on taking pictures, take a lot of pictures, but I didn't come across any posts suggesting how to take a good set of pictures. I have a lot of pictures, but I'm finding they aren't a great set.

First, I find that when searching, most people spend a lot of time taking and posting on the top of the playfield. My pictures under the playfield are highly lacking. If anyone has a good set of pre-teardown / teardown pictures of the underside, please send them or point me to them. <y suggestion for someone who is doing this for the first time.

Before you remove anything, Start with taking pictures with a high resolution camera from as close as you can to the playfield with everything still in focus, 6- 12" if you can. Work in a grid pattern, making sure you have overlap. Looking back, I would have taken 4 sets of those pictures, each set with a slightly different angle on the picture.

Move the wiring harness around a little to get pictures of things under it.

I would do the top in the same way.

During the tear down, I took pictures as I took things apart, I wished I had owned my Vernier caliper during teardown, I would have taken pictures of the screw measurements as I removed them.

During my next teardown I would also create a grid pattern for small (screws and fasteners) parts and place them in the grid for smarter reassembly, rather than having one bucket of screws and fasteners. I think I would try and have a grid of 10x4. It might require some more time but then as I put stuff back together (in my case 3+ years later) it would make it easier to know I'm putting things back in the right place.

I think my topside pictures are good, won't know until I start working up there.

So again, if you have a great set of underside pictures, please send them, I am having some difficulty.

Today's parts search...
Looking for replacement kicker switch assemblies. According to the manual (bottom of page 66) the game uses a paired kicker A-4834-H , and B-8734-1 on both the left and right sides. My switches look like they've been bent beyond where they should be (and one was poorly rebuilt). I'd rather replace them. I looked on Marco Specialties, and a couple of others, didn't find them. I will call Marco on Monday, but didn't know if anyone else had anything or suggestions on replacements.

Thanks in advance.

OK, finally made some progress today. It may not seem like a lot, but after all of the stalling, I finally moved the wiring harness to the playfield (just sitting on there).

Someone told me when reattaching, start at the bottom of the playfield (may have also been in vid's guide too). I didn't know why before, but I do now. If you start at the bottom, you can shift the harness down or up to get things positioned correctly.

Today, as you can see in the photo's, I've installed the ball return components (on the bottom side).

It's a little slow going with drilling each hole, vacuuming each hole, then attaching the pieces (oh, and finding the pieces). I'm finding the spacing of the dimples doesn't center the two holes on my mounting brackets. I can use one dimple, then need to correct for the other hole, so it's one hole at a time. I don't mind, just glad there is forward movement.

One other tip for those of you just starting. You can see my home made rotisserie in the image. I should have made it shorter so that the playfield overhangs the metal bracket by about 2 inches on either side. Since this is in my living room, I'd rather not cut the metal there, but we shall see. The problem is that there is a side wooden rail that needs to be installed on the top side before I can install the plastic ball trough underneath and right now the rotisserie will hit that piece of wood that goes on the top of the playfield.

That's it for today. Hoping for more progress tomorrow.

BTW I'm attaching detailed photos to help others who may do this as well. But if you are looking at the pictures and you see something wrong, please let me know.

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I found the replacements at action pinball, but they have been out of stock now for a week and a half, I have no idea when they are coming in. I was able to find an alternative at pinballlife in stock, the only downside (lazy me) is I have to do some additional soldering and install the diode myself.

I found that the slingshots are currently setup with the wrong coils, so I'm putting those back to factory specs as well.

Lower third of the bottom of the playfield installed, still working my way up. Received new leaf switches and coils for slingshots and those are also installed. Additional soldering still to be done.

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Can someone tell me if there is a lamp for the flower insert in the middle of the playfield? I see no reference to one in the manual and my pictures aren't good enough to show anything.

Thanks, now that you point it out, it is the sun. This picture does help. Looks like it lights in parallel with the Jackpot.

Can someone tell me if I am supposed to have compression springs on the two coils in the pictures? One is for ball shooter lane feeder, the other is for the Eject hole arm assembly. According to the manual, they don't show or reference a spring. My pictures seem to be missing those crucial angles. Can someone take a look?

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Continuing on the slowest longest restoration project possible...
I've started to repopulate the top of the playfield (yep, 5 years + and counting)
The first screw-in post I've tried to install snapped, of course near the playfield. Cannot get pliers on to remove, any suggestions on how to drill out without causing more damage?
I'm thinking if I go from the bottom of the board, I can get to it, but I'm concerned the drill bit will slip and just make a giant hole.

There are a couple of posts in this thread that have parts lists, check page one. I think around #20 for the first one.

That would be too easy. The snapped post is effectively a wood screw.

Progress is being made. Some pointers for newbies:

• The holes that come from the factory on replacement playfields may not be large enough, better to size and predrill your own. Keep in mind that posts and plastics may hide the hole, so you can drill a very small (deep) wider hold to clear out the clear.
• Some mistakes can be hidden by plastics. Had to drill out a broken screw, since it's under a plastic post, the scratches will never be seen.
• Sometimes you have to be creative on getting things to fit right.
• Early in the new playfield population, install the pop bumpers (I did bottom, then top). It would have been better to install the pop bumper plastics, then the light socket early so it's easy to staple in place with little in the way.
• It's impossible to take too many pictures. Take them from the top, sides and bottom. On the wiring, take a picture and move some of the wires out of the way to take another.

Because I didn't follow my own advise, I need to get some help on pictures. I don't have good pictures showing how the jet bumper light sockets should be wired. Can anyone either provide some pictures or tell me how it's done.

I think there is a common ground for all three lights, then each light has its own power, can anyone tell me the wire colors, or just send some good pics?

And now to continue the longest running playfield swap / restoration ever.

I finally got going again about a week ago. When something stupid happens or difficult, I tend to procrastinate. I can't believe I haven't been kicked out of my own house as I started this (and took over the living room in 2015).

I was making decent progress on repopulating the playfield until yesterday when I came across a couple of challenges, hopefully you guys will give me some answers / suggestions:
1. One of the screw heads broke off (of course the screw is all the way into the playfield. Contemplating on best solution. I saw someone who used a chisel to remove enough wood to get the drill chuck to grab onto it, but I'm not linking that idea with the playfield, I might have enough room, but not sure. The more I think about it, I might be better off just using some type of mending plate or a flat piece of metal, possibly just using a washer or two against the back (overlapped). It's in an area no one will see. (Broken screw on right, holding in the guard rail. There are still 3 other good attachment points.

2. I didn't realize that there are different sized standoffs (3 1/8" and 3 11/32") Not sure if it was a manufacturing error as there is nothing in the Williams Blue Book matching that (the closest is the 3 1/8"). I cannot tell from my pictures don't know if anyone knows which of the two standoffs is taller in the picture with the red arrows.

Anyone have a good color match so I can repaint the back rail blue?

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Landmark day.
I have finally installed all the hardware on the (first layer) of the playfield (pictures below). I had to deal with a couple of challenges during the build. 2 broken screws. Better to do some more pre-drilling to reduce the issue. In one case I was able to drill it out and put in a sleeve to hold the post in the proper place. Since it's a post and hidden in layers, no one can see the oops.
I was missing a couple of washer head screws. They were a size 6, I was able to find #8 replacements, but didn't consider the head might be too big. I ended up grinding down the washer head. The benefit is that it should be a stronger hold as a #8. If anyone needs some of these (it came in a package of 100) let me know, I'll mail you a few, you get to grind them down.

Since I purchased my parts over 5 years ago, as such my new set of rings need to be replaced already (waiting for them to come in).

Now you get to play a game.

What parts are missing (Rings don't count), I think there are only two, but you take a look and post. First one is obvious. BTW, no ramps either, I only put the one in to see how it looked, it's not attached.

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I'll take you up on it. I cannot figure what goes in the hole that's identified in the picture. I know next to it is the screw to hold the wire cage, but haven't found a picture of what goes in that hole.

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Thanks for pointing that out, I would never have thought about it and it would have driven me nuts. Not sure if there is another one available to match. I'll have to look into options.

Continuing on with the slowest rebuild in history. I'm challenging anyone to tell me otherwise.
Thanks to jibmums for picking up the wrong pop bumper bodies. I got new ones and of course destroyed the lamp sockets while removing the old ones, so waiting for new sockets now.
Made progress on getting everything resoldered. Had some help holding things in place. Don't know how you guys do it with only two hands.
The biggest missing piece was dealing with the acid on my CPU board. I sent a couple of boards out to ChrisHibler but he said the damage was too much. Just recently found DumbAss and the great work he's doing. I am hoping to receive a new board in July. This is giving me a deadline to get everything done.

Crazy question for you guys, once I have everything back in the machine, is there a safe way to test stuff other than just turning the machine on? I don't want some mistake I may have made on the playfield to damage the circuit boards.

More lessons learned.

As I previously stated, I had to replace the pop bumper bodies. In taking the old ones out, I destroyed the lamp holders and decided to go with the new wire style with the centering bracket. I didn't think about the wire gauge and what would happen to them when I stapled to the board with my pneumatic staple gun. It only operates around 60PSI, well the staple held, but it cut the wire. Of course, I didn't see it at first, but when I went to work with the wire, it was then that I had a piece in my hand. Luckily, I ordered an extra.
For the remainder of them, I cut a small piece of corrugated cardboard and used it as a small cushion for the remaining staples.

Progress.

So, while I'm waiting for a replacement main board (since I know I need one).
I figured I would connect all the boards and wires up to the bad CPU. I figured worst thing some stuff will work, some won't.
The playfield is still out of the cabinet and only has layer one of parts on, so if I have to check / fix something, I don't have to take everything apart. Again for those new to this, you don't have to have everything installed to start testing. You do need to make sure you don't have any cross circuits / wires touching things that shouldn't be, etc.

Here are some of the issues I'm having. I thought I might be able to test some stuff and get the machine ready for final assembly.

1. Test mode was a little confusing, not sure I've got everything figured out. I was finally able to get in. I originally thought I couldn't get in due to my mainboard, but that wasn't it.

2. Some of the lights don't seem to be working:

1. lower playfield GI (did a total rewire on this) [Not sure if there is a separate fuse for this]
2. the #1 lock (this was not rewired) I checked the bulb with a battery, it works fine in and out of the socket
3. On the institute, only lights 1 and 7 seem to be working, I'm hoping this is just the processor board

(BTW, for those new to this, the flashers don't work as part of the light test, they have their own test.)

3. Both the left and right flippers were working, when I triggered individually. Once I triggered both, they worked once, then the right flipper went dead. I checked the fuses and found one popped. I also looked at the rebuilt flippers, the end of stroke wasn't aligned correctly for the right or the top left. I made some bad assumptions that rebuilding them completely with all new parts would have things in proper alignment.

I'll post again with more progress and a couple of pictures.

So I figured out part of the lower GI lighting issue.

In order to find the short, I removed power to 3 different clusters of lamps and removed the bulbs.
I then tested for the short using a multimeter set to Ohms test. Putting one probe on each of the two sides of the light socket.
If the meter showed open, that string was good. If the meter registered a value it meant I had a short on that cluster of lights.

In two instances I had shorted out the light string.
First one was a staple angled into the socket and was also under some solder. This was causing the first short.
The second one was sloppy soldering, some solder bridged across the light socket.

With those two issues taken care of, I was able to test everything as clear.

But I'm still having an issue. I have no lights on the door or the lower GI. These are both controlled by a single fuse on the interconnect board, so I'm hoping that's now the problem. I included the wiring diagram starting from the transformer so you can see how I came up with my current hypothesis. I'll let you know.

BTW, I tested the transformer and I am getting the 6V AC coming from all of the legs.

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Latest Update.

The lower GI was finally fixed after clearing up shorts that I installed and replacing the fuse.
The lights on the door were due to a broken power wire on the connector at the door. In fact there were two broken wires, one on the male side, one on the female side.

I purchased some 0.093 male and female pins. I also purchased the extraction tool (which for this connector was a waste of money as there is no way to insert it. I tried using the extraction tool on the male side, it just broke the pin, but wouldn't / couldn't insert to where the barb was. I ended up breaking off the pin from the front side and using a nail and some brute force to get it out.

On the female side, again, the tool wasn't going to insert into this plug, so I grabbed a small drill bit and very slowly used the drill to get the pin out. Not sure if someone has a better way, but given that I was only removing those two, it got the job done.

The wires that I fixed were the yellow (GI power wire) and the Green with Brown stripe wire for the switch matrix, (Column 1).

ChrisHibler With that green wire fixed, the machine started acting wonky. As a reminder I have a variety of battery acid issues on the main board, so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. I have a new one on order from DumbAss but I want to get as much fixed / working as possible prior to getting the new board.

Prior to fixing that pin on the connector, I was able to load the factory settings and get into diagnostics mode. (None of the column one switches seemed to work, and they still don't). Even though I was able to previously get into self test, I am unable to use the credit button for anything either in the game adjustments (which I can get into) or the self test (when it used to work).

Neither of the coin slots work (using the switch), tilt, etc.

A couple of questions:
Is there a way to test the connectors / pins from either the interconnect board or the CPU to see if the issue is starting there?
Am I at a point that I just need to wait for the new CPU board and go from there?

While the picture doesn't show it from the refresh rate, the display is working fine and complete. The pictures included show the power on message, Factory Settings, then if I click the advance button (test switch) it shows Earthshaker and I'm assuming the ROM version. If I load the factory settings in an effort to get into the self test mode, the screen fills with the pattern in the 3rd picture. (Again not showing all due to refresh rate and camera).

I also notice that the "blanking" led is lit on the main board (not sure what that is).

Any thoughts / suggestions on what I should do / work on while waiting for the new board?
Does it make sense that having that green-brown wire broken at the door would cause the CPU to no longer go into test mode?
Also, while the wire was broken, The test / manual up / auto down switches were working, which doesn't make too much sense to me either.

I've also included the switch matrix and other related information in the final (pdf) attachment, but you need to click on it to see the matrix (Page 2) and wiring colors.

Thanks for your help.

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swith matrix info.pdf

Today's earth-shattering lessons.

The sockets on the building go bad (mostly stretch) and are available for about $1 - $1.50 a piece. Spent a bunch of time fixing some, but going to replace all so I don't have to worry about them.

The problem I have been having with my credit button was simply corrosive build up on it. A simple cleaning of the switch with an abrasive has it working. While I cannot get the game to boot into playable mode, nor can I get it into test mode any more (which is a little odd), I can get the machine into burn-in test mode as that's an adjustment, so it uses a different pathway.

Seems like all the lights are working now and I think all of the installed solenoid components. I'm going to take a chance and put the remaining parts on the playfield, hoping they will just work (don't think there are any wiring issues).

Thanks for stopping by.