I picked up an Earthshaker at Pintastic in July.

Hindsight, I paid too much for it however, lesson learned.

I just got through restoring both my Jokerz! and Taxi after getting them back from my ex wife after 10 or so years and I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

From the outside, it looks GREAT! My eagerness got the best of me, the inside was a nightmare.

Here she is at the show.

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Getting her home and in the game room.

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She played for a couple hours before fuses started to blow (I know check them before you power it on however, I played it most of the day at the show )

The cabinet is in fantastic shape, the inside not so much.

The mylar was foggy and coming up in a lot of places, there had been some really bad touch ups, plus, it appears someone had thrown a beer at the playfield (I'm assuming this from a caramelized splash pattern, dents, goop and bad hacks to fix said catastrophe)

The Institute was held in by a piece of wood crammed behind it (the mounting was snapped and the bracket to hold it to the playfield was no where to be found)

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Wire nuts do not belong anywhere near a pinball machine, save them for ceiling fans please.

I was able to get a lot of the parts off the playfield pretty quick however, the more I took it apart, the more hacks I found. I resigned myself to the fact that the playfield had to come out and get some TLC

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notice the bad touchup job by zone 5

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Working on the floor was not an option, I needed a Jig and fast (leaping before I looked yet again )

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A trip to home depot, 2 hours and 40 dollars later TAAA DAAAAAA

I used the canned air method to remove the mylar. WAY easier than the old way of a hairdryer and nail polish remover (I did that 10 years ago on Taxi and Jokerz! (for the record to anyone looking at the price listed on the machine, no I did not pay that much)

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BEER!
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Note to self, this is not how the institute should sit on a proper playfield

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Look at ME! I'm Covered in old BEER GOO!!! (it was the 80's, could have been a wine cooler or a Zima (late 80's))

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Oh, and I'm wicked broken.

There's way more to come. I hope you like it so far

MustangPaul. The mylar came off like butter! Having suffered through the old ways, I will never go back! Canned air is the best way to do it to date.

The key to mylar is to take your time.

It should pop not snap (if that make any sense)

If you find that you're tugging instead of pulling, back off and freeze the hell out of it.

You know that it's time to pull when the cracking sound from the freezing dies off a little.

It should come off like tick tick tick not rip rip rip.

You're going to find stubborn spots, freeze them and move to an easier bit (something that's pealing up already is a good candidate)

supermatt right now this game is bringing the hate electronically (that's for another post though)

Great game, sucks to restore!

3 to 4 cans of canned air at least!
It's not going to come off in an hour, mine took 4 days (old way 2 to 3 weeks)

playfield stripped, here's a good shot of the bad touch up (I think it's testors model paint)
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There was also some cool natural wear around the ramps that I ended up keeping.
Kind of like a road worn guitar, I didn't want the machine to lose all of its character during the restore
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Touch up days.
I used frisket and an airbrush for the big swathes of color. I (meaning my girlfriend) also used brushes for fine detail.IMG_2425.JPG

The blue is a dead match

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Couple (6) coats of varathane.

I went through 4 cans total acquired from amazon

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You can see some of the worn places I left as is. I clear coated and leveled the area.

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I was never a fan of the clear star posts. I used orange as I feel it's an under used complimentary color on the machine.

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Much better

Also replaced the interconnect board, the MPU (I use rottendogs on all system 11's, it's worth it)

One thing to mention, I left the gi in when I clear coated because I thought it would be easy to just replace them, it's not.

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The whirlwind was in ROUGH shape and he did want too much for it, I was able to get an OK price for the ES and I think I put way too much faith in the rest of the machine based on the shape of the cabinet.

BTW, a system 11 will fit in the back of a 2006 Pontiac Vibe, there is a site out there that says this is not true however, that is exactly how this one came home with me

I'm really happy with how this turned out visually, I just need to get it to work right now.

I'm having 3 problems that have me on the ropes.

1) The ball moving coils under the apron (the ones that stage the balls and kick them out to the shooter lane) are not firing at all.
This also seems to effect the zone 5 kicker coil

2) The fault coil (the one in the back right corner that starts the earthshaker and kicks the ball up to the habitrails) blows a fuse every other time it fires (it did this when I brought it home before the restore.)

3)The Nevada California lane switching thingy, when the states open up, California shoots left however, it becomes dislodged from the opener mech.

Things I've done so far.

The interconnect board was badly hacked and really fried, I've replaced it with a brand new board.
The MPU, was also badly hacked and had battery damage as well as fried bits. That was replaced with a new Rottendog MPU.

Both replacements fixed a drop target sensing error and a lot of GI problems.

Any help with my 3 remaining problems will be greatly appreciated.

New Aux driver board fixed the non working coils.

I still have no idea why the fault coil blows fuses