I just bought my very first pinball this year, which I am beginning to restore. I don't ever remember playing an Elektra before but I did enjoy Xenon when it first came out. Working machines have become very scarce where I live, so I grabbed this one to learn to work on them and to finally own one.
It's sitting on sawhorses in my apartment with the two top play fields mostly stripped of parts. The chrome ramps are worn and dented in places. The cabinet's magenta paint is faded and the upper play field is worn, but the backglass is very good. I had to drill the lock out on the back box when I bought it so we could fold it down and move it thirty miles. What size lock do I need to replace it? Only the backbox displays light up and there is no sound or playfield lights. The rubbers had all turned hard and split off the play fields. I think it was last worked on or was played about ten years ago. The owner had bought a rubbers rebuild kit that was still in the shipping box, unopened, from 2006. The company that owned and operated it went out of business.
I built a 3" PVC soaking tube for the Evaporust and have soaked the lockdown bar, its receiver parts and the steel strip below the front of the backglass. I have a new 6" bench grinder with a denim wheel to buff out parts, plus a vibratory cleaner and walnut media to clean small stuff. I will have to use the grinder and vibrating cleaner at remote sites, as they are too loud and messy for my apartment.
The power rectifier board was scorched in a few spots and the F5 fuse was blown so I bought a brand new replacement board, as I did not trust it based on the shoddy solder repairs and heat damage. It came with new fuses installed and I bought a few spares too. Fortunately the lithium battery on the MPU board had not leaked. I cut it off the board and recycled it. I may have to send off the other boards to be inspected and repaired later, as nobody services any pinballs around here.
Luckily for me, enough interest has been made in Elektras to warrant making new plastics sets for it. I just ordered one. My old plastics are warped and cracked some. I will try flattening them with a heat gun and using them for the initial setup. But maybe I will figure out which clear acrylic fender washers could be used to protect them. I also bought some new chromed acorn nuts but now may use nylon or rubber posts to avoid more plastic breakage. I bought some new white rubber posts for the lower playfield and now just need a lot more of them.
As I clean the parts for the two upper playfields and some metal things inside the cabinet, the lower playfield will have to wait. It too will need minor cleaning and wax. The flippers need to be removed to be cleaned as the old red rubber bands stuck to them in places. The flipper components seem to be in good order and clean, so they may have been rebuilt just before the game broke. But the lower left flipper platform lost three screws from the bottom of the playfield. I will have to plug the holes with toothpicks and glue before remounting it. I plan to clean and wax the upper playfield because it is powder dry and the graphics are badly worn. The center of the chrome ramps are also worn and will not buff out. I think the pinballs wore through the chrome layer and I am seein the inner steel area. These ramps also have some minor rust pitting on the outside edges and bottoms. I have rubbed them out with Nevr-Dull and will likely soak them in Evaporust before carefully attempting to buff them out some more.
Reading the forums has given me lots of good ideas for fixing this machine. My funds are not unlimited and if I had looked harder I might have found a different working pin somewhere. This one cost me $450 and came with a small rebuild kit. Hopefully I can get it back up to speed this summer.

Here is how I found it in a warehouse and some details of it being worked on in my apartment. Note the damage to the center of the ramps I shined up by hand, the lockdown bar receiver parts after soaking in Evaporust, gunked up wire connectors inside the cash door, red bands stuck to the lower playing field flippers, the loose left flipper bracket, and worn upper playfield as I stripped it of parts. I removed the old damaged decal from the cash door. I also took the yellow-colored insulated grounding strips from inside the cabinet off, cut off the old yellow shrink tubing and will soon vibrate clean them to remove the rust on the ends. I bought new red shrink tubing for them at Radio Shack. Many of my supplies have to be bought online or I drive thirty miles to the larger town I bought the machine in to get them. We don't have a Radio Shack here anymore but we do have Walmart and a Home Depot. The dark gun metal gray legs have surface rust at the bottoms which I will cover with dark gray Rustoleum primer for now. I bought new HD feet too, which I will spray with clear spar before putting them on the legs, as the old feet were rusted. I also bought new long chrome leg bolts. They push against the inside of the sheet metal plates mounted on both sides of the cash door to cover the leg brackets, but probably won't tear them out when it is tightened down. Will it cause any grounding problems if the bolts touch these plates?

The original two-prong power cord is still installed, which I can put a grounded adapter plug on for now. I won't be plugging it in or turning it on anytime soon. In fact, I probably won't mount the new rectifier board in the lower cabinet until I finish cleaning and detailing the play fields. I also bought a new Bally shooter rod but the chrome outer cabinet covering and big nylon bushing are slightly damaged. It is only cosmetic but I will look for replacements anyway.

I don't know how to do electrical work at all or even read schematics. I do have a manual and can make sense of some of it, but hopefully this baby will fire up with minimal fuss after I put it all back together. There is nobody in this area servicing pins anymore except the last two in town, which barely work. So either it works or it sits, but it's fun to work on and hope that it will play. Someday soon I'll be moving back to a much larger city where I can have someone help work on it, but for now its a wish and a dream to crave my pinball fever. My buddy just got a very nice Williams Cyclone given to him by his uncle and he won't stop playing it long enough to even clean the playfield. I have ordered parts online and fixed minor things for him, as he is not mechanically or electrically inclined at all. At least we have one game that we can play at will for now. For now I am watching lots of YouTube videos, reading online and printed pages to keep in a binder. I am also keeping a work log to track my progress.

It seems like I have bought lots of replacement parts, tools and supplies for this project. I estimate they will equal or surpass my initial investment but seem to be worth every penny. As one guy told me, 'now you really have the bug.'

DSCF0109 (resized).JPG

DSCF0134 (resized).JPG

DSCF0178 (resized).JPG

DSCF0172 (resized).JPG

DSCF0221 (resized).JPG

DSCF0211 (resized).JPG

DSCF0229 (resized).JPG

DSCF0236 (resized).JPG

My biggest challenge lately has been polishing chrome ramps and ball guides. I tried cleaning them by hand but it doesn't take the dark lines and wear out of the centers. So I'm setting up buffing wheels on a 6" grinder and hoping to buff them out with it. I've read a few forum posts about people cutting their hands badly using such a setup. I will be doing the work outdoors soon. Any tips? Would it be safer to screw the ramps to lumber and use a drill-mounted buffer. I have no experience with either setup so far.

Thanks, Aladdin. I have a 6" Ryobi. The buffing wheels are more narrow than the grinding wheels it came with. It came with one metal spacer so I could only mount one buffer wheel. I called Ryobi to see about buying another spacer. They are sending me another spacer now for free, so I haven't set it up yet. Besides it's been raining a lot and I'll need to run it outdoors.

The spacers for the buffer came in today. I've been polishing the ball shooter with Mothers as I watched TV today. It just needs a final polish with the buffer and then it's on to the other parts. If I clear sprayed parts that are usually grounded, such as the square zinced plate under the on/off switch, will it affect how they are grounded? I soaked this plate and the lockdown bar lever in rust remover. A small section of the square plate had rust on the bottom side, which is now gone. I do not have the means to re-coat it with zinc at this time.

I used Evaporust in a 3" diameter PVC pipe soaking setup. It worked amazingly well. There is another forum thread about the cult of Evaporust that helped me a lot.

I'm cleaning the lower playfield with Scrubbing Bubbles and Q-tips. First I removed both flippers and carefully cleaned them. The red rubber bands had rotted off and stuck in places to the plastic flippers so I scraped them off and cleaned all of the plastic flipper part with Novus 2. All of the coils in the machine match the manual's specs and the flippers look to be in decent condition.
The flippers on the lower playfield are missing the three backing lock nuts each. What size nuts will I need and who can I order them from? Likely the other flippers are in the same condition so I will buy extras.
The previous operator also put two oversized flat head screws in the top of the left bracket on the lower playfield. One came through the playfield about 1/16" and the other left a small dent. Also, the big eyelet screw that holds the cable which supports the lower playfield was overtightened and started to push through the playfield too.
The lower playfield has plenty of dirt, ball swirls and minor planking. I will see how well it cleans up and will likely just wax it instead of overcleaning to try to restore it to vibrant colors. (I'm watching reruns of Miami Vice and cleaning it slowly and carefully).
I had begun cleaning with naptha and Q-tips but it wasn't removing much dirt, so I switched to Scrubbing Bubbles, which worked great.

Tonight I was cleaning the lower playfield with Scrubbing Bubbles and a Magic Eraser. It was slow, but the ball swirls are disappearing. I finished about a third of it so far. The planking is mostly on the left side so I haven't rubbed too hard over there yet.

Finally got the lower playfield touched up by using Createx airbrush paints and very fine brushes. I'll let it cure for a month while I work on the upper playfield, which is badly worn and I cannot even hope to restore at this time. Both will be waxed and then repopulated before moving on to fix the electronics. Hopefully, if I keep the two small playfields waxed and clean, it will play well and not plank again. As for the chrome ramps, they are as clean as I can get them by hand polishing and I have not set up the power buffer. I don't have a good place to set it up because I live in an apartment and don't have a shop or garage to work in. Plus, I don't want to damage them because I don't have replacements available at all. They can be taken off and polished one at a time by myself, or someone else, if I decide to sell the machine at a later date. This restoration has taken much longer than I had planned because I decided to paint the lower playfield and I am busy with orher things. I know that people may cringe at the hand painting route, but they are watercolor paints that can easily be removed later if someone wants to airbrush and then seal the surface correctly.

IMG_1309 (resized).JPG

IMG_1311 (resized).JPG

There is a complete Elektra lower playfield on eBay right now, starting at $100, if anyone needs one. It has all of the hardware and looks to be in great shape. The auction still has four days to go.

The description on eBay says the lower playfield came out of a fully functional game, so maybe the guy used the rest of the machine to design a custom game, and just deleted the 'basement' feature. The other parts listed are from another seller in Alabama and have been listed on eBay for months. I imagine someone will buy this whole playfield, but if not, the seller may part it out if you ask after the sale ends.

Search on this forum for the thread "Reproduction Aprons by brenna98." Apparently he is making high quality reproduction aprons, but I haven't been following the thread or ordered one. Good luck!

Could someone tell me what this bent switch does? It seems to have something to do with the ball return mechanism. I just noticed that it is bent and not sticking up through the cutout in the main playfield. Should I remove it and bend it back into shape?

F6FAB492-FF1D-43CB-A9A3-28B3B195DDF3 (resized).jpeg

Thanks cad-kid. I fixed it. The hand painted lower playfield was showing some brush strokes under the bright worklights, so I lightly sanded those areas. Here is how it looked before sanding. I can still see some minor flaws, but most will probably disappear when I wax it.

322CF7D7-718C-4810-B78B-D00B9D3BA983 (resized).jpeg

31B2087A-93FC-4A46-B3C1-E2C5E9501CCF (resized).jpeg

Waxing the lower playfield made it very slick but it is a bit rough and not as slick in some areas that I hand painted and didn’t sand as much. One such area is the center of the rear loop. I could remove the wax and sand it down but I think I’ll just play it to see if it wears first.
After repopulating the lower playfield, next I will clean and wax the upper playfield, which is badly worn. But should I wax the main plexiglass playfield too? It might make it very slick and prevent wear. What have you guys done? Inquiring minds want to know...or at least I do. This caranuba wax is amazing stuff!

This is the first machine I have ever owned or worked on. I didn’t want to take all of the electronics off of the lower playfield to clear coat it and know nothing about applying mylar sheets. I have read that you can apply mylar over waxed areas for protection and easy removal, but would likely need one big piece to cover the lower playfield area. Plus, there are no ops in my area to help me. I bought the machine to play because our local ops sold off their games and got out of the business. The nearest new games are over a hundred miles away and we have 3-4 old ones on routes in town now and none are being repaired.

But I do appreciate the help. I just repopulated the lower playfield last night and fixed the flippers too. I waxed the chrome on the rear loop before reinstalling it. And waxing the plexi sounds like a good idea. I’ll keep a close eye on the lower playfield for wear and protect it with wax for now. The loop’s paint in the back will likely wear first and will be easy to touch up with red paint again, if need be. I put the old plastic pieces back on and new bands. I have a new set of plastics too, but I’ll see how it plays first with the old ones, which I flattened on a cookie sheet with a heat gun.

B8055008-815B-4079-9772-43C7B01B83FD (resized).jpeg

I also put foam on the back of the targets on the lower playfield last night. I bought some from Titan Pinball and it was just the right size. Some of the contacts might have to be adjusted to make better contacts later, so I’ll have to test them by hand and learn how to adjust them. I’ll add the same foam to the upper playfield’s targets too. My friend’s Cyclone has lots of airballs hit the glass despite adjusting the flipper bands, and I hope to minimize airballs on Elektra, starting with this foam. That might help the plastics last longer too.

I stripped the paint off of both spinners because they were badly worn, but now wish I had just left them original. I have the new decals for them, which I could have just pasted on over the worn images. Now I need to paint them again from bare metal.

I finally got it all cleaned up and mostly put together. I even removed the apron and cleaned it and the parts underneath it. The plastics were left off in case I had more bulbs to change. The new rectifier board is installed too.

When I plugged it in yesterday and powered it up not much happened. As you can see, about half of the backglass lights came on and some bulbs inside the coin door. So I turned it off and replaced the bulbs that weren’t lit, since I have lots of new 555s. I turned the volume up from the coin door switch to make a slight hum. When powering up it makes a small beep and the ball ejectors from both multiball holes cycle. The top left red arrow on the lower playfield came on last night but is now off, along with all other playfield lights.

I got out the manual to begin trouble-shooting it and found out that the self test button inside the cash door is broken off and needs to be replaced. The bands kit had poor instructions and is missing some bands, so I need to order those too. Hopefully putting a self test button in it won’t reveal a bad MPU board, but I hope that I can get it running without it being too expensive. Still, I’m optimistic. Since only the single player and Elektra credit displays are lit, maybe it broke down in that mode. It looks much better cleaned up and I am getting more comfortable working on it. The same lights lit up as when I first bought it so replacing the scorched rectifier with a new one probably didn’t change much, but it’s one less piece to the puzzle.

F7923AAF-36FC-4F15-A627-8EE2745008AB (resized).jpeg

80A946EC-C951-40E7-A271-31491AED09EC (resized).jpeg

2F2F37CD-1060-4084-A6B9-CBF3233FCEC4 (resized).jpeg

OK, so I’ve been reading the manual and the forum to trying to figure this out. I had loaded both balls by just throwing them into the trough between the flippers, but read to load one by the ‘outhole.’ I fished one out of the trough and put it in by the plunger. When I turned it on, it said “You have been exposed to Elektra’s radiation. Will you return?” A bunch of lights came on in the playfield, but lots were burned out. I held both flippers down and the lower playfield lit up. Again lots of bulbs were burned out. The left top red arrow came on a flashed, but made a fizzled noise and faded out again. Might just be a bad connection. Lots of bulbs on the backglass area were now flashing too. It’s a big improvement, and really made my day. Now I need to unplug it and change a few bulbs. It still won’t start a game yet, but that’s OK.

I replaced several bulbs on the lower playfield with new ones, until I ran out of bulbs. But some of the ones I replaced still had intact filaments, so I saved all of them in a baggie. When I powered back up, some of the replaced bulbs worked and some that previously worked didn’t.

I took a close overhead look at the self test button on the cash door and saw that the red button was missin but I could see a white plastic knob inside the housing. I tapped it with the end of a bamboo skewer and it worked. The backglass showed different numbers in all for score displays, lights flashed and sounds worked. With the cash door open I triggered the slam tilt and regular tilt switch, both of which gave me vocal messages. I’ll get out the manual tomorrow and see what those codes meant.

Could someone steer me towards a self test button online, such as at Marco, Big Daddy or elsewhere?

Also, any ideas why some bulbs work and some don’t? Is it a board, connectors or something else?

8C3BC2A8-176E-4CDB-945F-DBBC39FD47FA (resized).jpeg

Yes, I bought a good meter but have never ever used one. I think I’ll wiggle some of the big plastic connectors on the wiring first, as they are all original. I haven’t opened the area behind the backglass yet and was just happy it didn’t burst into flames when I started it up. The coin slots won’t accept quarters to buy a game and I have yet to figure out how to set up free play, but I will. None of the flippers work yet either.

I went through the ‘Game Self-Diagnostic Tests’ on page 13 of the manual. The four main flippers worked but not the two in the lower level. Lots of lights are still out so it may might be a bad board that was just ignored.

Thanks! I looked at Steve’s site but didn’t know what to call the part. Do you happen to know the description or part number?

Thanks! I looked at Steve’s webpage but don’t know the part name or number. Do you remember what it is?

I need to order some more rubber rings and such, so this is a good source.

I just plugged in in to work on it tonight. I opened the door on the head to see the MPU board. With the first click of the switch it doesn’t give 7X flashes, but instead it just keeps flashing constantly, so that’s not right. It lights up both upper and lower playfields, but some lights in the lower playfield are lighting up slower than others, such as ‘100.’ Sometimes only a few lights come on and other times most of them flash. On step 2, all four displays light up with 11111-99999. Step 3 fires the solenoids. I held in the flipper buttons and all four big flippers worked. All four displays count 1-11 and both balls are ejected from the trough to the shooter. My machine does have the little red button and a light by the rear flippers on the underside, but I didn’t mess with it yet. Step 4 plays the ‘game over’ sounds normally with no displays flashing. Step 5 plays the tones faster and all four displays show ‘40.’ Step 6 shows 148,480 in all four displays. But one time the lower playfield lights were mostly all lit up but flashing off and on. I looked under the playfield and the white bulb was flickering on and off, accompanied by a sick buzzing noise. So something under there is struggling to work.

I pressed the little red button repeatedly and nothing happened. So I have still not seen the small flippers work yet. And the light next to it isn’t working, so this is where I will start. I think the ‘40’ message meant the switch on the left slingshot needs a look at, but its solenoid is firing on step 3. I might get a new MPU so I can later install LEDs without ghosting, plus it might fix the 7x issue, but it is an expensive upgrade for me.

I pushed and held the red button during the solenoid test step and the red flippers have yet to work. The buzzing from below seems to be a bad solenoid expander switch or something because it’s making that buzzing noise and causing the white light underneath to flicker off and on. The switch looks normal and not damaged. I’ll buy some new switches and replace the red ones, which looks like an easy solder job. While the buzzing is going on, the lights on the lower playfield flicker weakly off and on and the white light underneath flickers too. Could it be a lamp board? The buzzing and flickering is a big indicator of something wrong and the non-working flippers may or may not be related.

As for the free play mode, the manual doesn’t say which test number it is, but I watched for it. The displays from tests 6-21 all show numbers or no displays at all on a few, but ‘free play’ was never displayed.

I’ll look at the coin mechanism again because I couldn’t even get quarters to insert into them. But an Alltec MPU may be something to get in the future, especially if LEDs are to be put in the playfield.

I bought the machine from a guy in Joplin, Missouri, that owns an RV dealership. He said his grand-daughters played it there in the showroom. He told me it used tokens, which someone had liberated from the cash box years ago. He also said that he manipulated the cash mechanism by hand somehow until credits appeared on the backglass. I can get tokens at the local arcade and try it. I just spoke to him today while shopping in Joplin to avoid Black Friday.

I came home and found a token to try but it wouldn’t go into the coin slots. I got a flashlight and discovered several tokens stuck inside the coin slots. I can’t get them out with tweezers or a knife blade so I began looking at ways to take the main coin mechanism apart. In doing so, I found the electronic sensors that the coins roll past and put about ten games on the backglass by rolling the brass wheel on the outside of them. I pressed the ‘on’ button and it was ready to play, sort of.

The ball trough sensor is messed up. It lauches both balls into the trough and cannot sense when one drains. It’s probably that leaf switch I bent back into shape or else I put something back together wrong under the apron. But I plunged the ball and played it some. The main flippers work well. All targets make points, including the star rollovers. It didn’t make many sounds though, like the loud humming I have heard in YouTube videos. But it was a big day for me!

I’ll take you up on that solenoid expander! I’ll message you.

Are there other benefits to using Alltek boards to upgrade, such as using LEDs without ghosting? I could send off my MPU and other boards to be diagnosed and fixed, or is it just better to bite the bullet and buy brand new boards? I’m not worried about keeping it all original. Right now it seems the MPU is messed up because the basic diagnostics are flawed. Instead of getting 7x flashes and stopping, it just keeps flashing, along with all of the playfield lights. Plus some of the louder playfield sounds are missing and some lights don’t stay on. I think the lower flippers will work after I replace the switch and solenoid expander board. Today I lifted the playfield to change bulbs and power it up to check them. The solenoid expander’s black switch started making noise and then quit. Lights on the lower playfield that were lit then flickered off.

The adventure continues. I disassembled the two coin slots today and removed 16 tokens and two quarters stuck in them. Both coin mechanisms are messed up. One gets every coin stuck in the end of the top chute, as if it is bent or something. If I get it unstuck and it drops, it goes to the coin return. In the other one, the coin stops at the top and goes back to the coin return when the lever is pushed. I thought both slots would result with coins in the cash box, but they don’t. If I figure out how to fix it, then a bowl of tokens and quarters would work for me, just for the novelty and simplicity.

I just googled pinball coin mechanisms to see what the coil is for and found ‘Bally Coin Mechanisms’ by Steve Kulpa. This explains what is going on. All is normal until I get it up and running.

While working on the cash door I removed the bracket that holds the self test button and volume control knob. This is a look at the bottom. It looks like it is grounded to the bracket itself and I have a bamboo skewer tip pointed at the loose yellow wire dangling next to it. When I install a new switch, should it look like this, or should I attach the yellow wire too?

56FC9F41-4515-4F47-9B00-3ACEBD21FBFF (resized).jpeg

I soldered in a new self test button and got seven flashes on the MPU board. There was a loose connection on some wires in the back box that made the lower playfield lights flicker. I pulled it off and put it back and now they work. The volume knob is turned up all the way but I only get faint noises and no big phrases. The ball return switches are messed up because it launches two balls to start a game and can’t sense when the ball in play drains. Some light bulbs come on if I wiggle them so I need to tweak the connectors inside them to make better contact. I’d say I’m 85% there but still have a ways to go. I’ll try to fix the ball return switches without replacing them, fix the bulbs and wiggle some more connectors. The flippers for the lower playfield are still dead too and I don’t even know how to fix that yet. Metalkatt sent me a used solenoid expander board that works great. Thanks!

I tried the self test button on the lower playfield today during the solenoid test and nothing happened. The switch is old but intact. With the glass off, I played a mock game for fun. When the ball drained, I either caught it with my fingers or fished it out of the trough with a stick and placed it back in the shooters lane to plunge again. Eventually I got lots of points and locked the top ball. I manually locked the second ball to see what would happen. Multiball was the result. When the second ball drained, the lower playfield lit up, the solenoid launched the ball and behold, the little red flippers worked! I think that I only had one Elektra unit on the scoreboard.

Earlier, when I ran diagnostics, one red arrow in the lower playfield did not light up. But it worked when the lower playfield came on, alternating with the other red arrow. Weird.

So apparently the self test button for the lower playfield is bad. I bought a few extra buttons from Marco so I can install one later. Maybe I should practice soldering some more before I do that though.

The game plays slower than I thought it would unless I hit it real hard, so I’ll check the steepness angle. The ball got hung up twice on the wire atop the second ramp from the right. I tilted it once just nudging it off. The tilt had been deactivated but I had hooked it up again. If it becomes a big problem with balls getting stuck, I might have to disconnect the tilt again.

Yes, I have a manual that came with the machine. I don’t know how to read the schematics, but it does have some useful information.

I noticed that the solenoid works on the left slingshot In test mode but the leaf switches don’t activate it in play mode. I can order new switches, but first should try to troubleshoot them with my meter, which I don’t have a clue about how to use. Any ideas?

Still haven’t figured out the slingshot switches but I’m working on it. They don’t fire when hit with my hand or a ball and look fine underneath the playfield. As you can see, I put lots of new bulbs in but some sockets refuse to work. I bent some socket contacts with a small screwdriver and fixed them. I also soldered a loose wire back onto on lower playfield socket, which fixed it.

The manual is making more sense now. I have the outside of the cash door disassembled for cleaning. The buzzing background noise is absent but I got it to work once a few days ago.

The backglass lights all work as do all of the sounds except for the background buzzing. I’ll keep the glass off for now as I keep working on it.

CEC14B63-E484-4686-BF4E-9327740D6CD0 (resized).jpeg

I worked on the trough switches last night with the apron removed and got them working correctly. Now I can play games normally from start to finish. I discovered it also has a ball save mode if it drains without scoring any points. The game just reloads the ball into the shooter lane. Very impressive for 1981 technology! It is still set for 5-ball games and I will figure out how to set it for 3-ball games.

The background buzzing noise has to be programmed in every day on self test #18, with three pushes of the start button, until 03 appears on the backglass. It makes for a much better game experience. I am unplugging the game each night, which might be why it hasn’t stored this setting. I also clipped out the lithium battery from the MPU when I brought it home, but I thought that only kept the high score memory.

Aside from the new power rectifier board I bought, this game runs on all original boards. The MPU has a 2006 sticker on it, so it might be refurbished. Overall, I am impressed with the quality and gameplay. It still has a few bugs to work out but I have been playing games on it at least. I have to be careful playing it with the playfield glass removed though, because you can really launch the balls off of the ramps if you hit them hard.

The left flipper in the lower playfield is weak and needs to be fixed. I installed a new self test button to the lower playfield yesterday, but in the solenoid test mode the flippers failed to work, however the light underneath the playfield came on each time I pushed it. The plunger mechanism in the lower playfield is also hesitating, which is probably a switch, as it was working fine before.

Now I just need to fix that left slingshot, which I will work on next. The backglass is a bit grimy on the backside and needs some careful cleaning. I saw one tiny area that could flake soon if not fixed, so I’ll hit it with some clear after cleaning it. There are also a few deep scratches on one edge that I will look at for either touching up or leaving them as is. I have both a new grounded power cord and a new backbox lock yet to be dealt with and two big aftermarket baffles to install behind the backglass.

Thank you for letting me know that. They both light up and I thought they were previously working, along with the one in the ball launch lane. Now all three are not working. It is hard to not get at least a few points on each ball and I only noticed it doing this ‘ball save’ when I purposely let balls drain while checking the trough switches. If I hit any targets before draining it acted normally and advanced to the next ball in play.

I have other switches that don’t register either. When the blue rollover in the left outlane is triggered, the blue light goes out but it doesn’t award the ten Elektra units. So it’s tough to rack up many Elektra units, but that’s the least of my concerns.

I have won a game on points, matched and hit specials too, so those features seem to be working.

I’ve been playing lots of games with the glass off and changing the settings on the MPU so it gives free balls and plays 3-ball games instead of the 5-ball games it was set for.

The manual is vague for self test settings 20 and 21. Does anybody know what they are for? It says they adjust from 00-15.

The trough usually feeds balls correctly to start a game and when one ball gets locked, but occassionaly it feeds two balls to start a game. So I need to re-adjust the leaf switch to the first sensor in the trough.

The lower ball lock kicks the ball out very hard. The ball even gets a bit airborne sometimes and then drains right between the flippers. I know there is a way to adjust this so it isn’t as strong but have yet to work on it.

The self test for the switches doesn’t show any problems but the left slingshot still doesn’t work. I even cleaned the playfield switches but there was no improvement. Play will be much better when I fix this.

The lower playfield art is holding up fine since I keep it waxed, just like the upper playfield. I just bought parts to rebuild the left flipper on the lower playfield.

I also got a new steel lift strip for the back glass. I cleaned the back of the glass and found out how to remove the old lift strip. I realized the top edge is missing a plastic edge strip. I bought some friction tape to help attach the new lift strip at Home Depot.

I still don’t know how to get the star rollovers to sense the ball from the shooters lane. They light up and make sounds though. The outlanes still don’t award Elektra units and the lower playfield is even activated with one unit, so it comes on constantly.

Eventually I will buy a NVRAM chip and have it installed on the MPU, and have its components checked. The MPU is from 1/2006, from El Dorado Games in Mt. Vernon, Mo.

Each time I plug in and power up the game I have to manually program settings 16-19 with the self test button, such as increasing the sound levels. But if I turn it off and unplug it, it loses these settings the next day. Is this a capacitor problem or something to do with the MPU? I did remove the lithium battery that was attached to the MPU when I brought it home.

Thanks RCA1. I knew it held high scores and guessed it might do more. Since the MPU is fairly new I’ll have NVRAM installed on it. One more mystery solved.

There is another populated lower playfield on ebay. This one is $150 plus shipping.

I’ve been working on the flippers, with some success, and minor setbacks. The simple fix was to disassemble them, clean them up and install new plungers, solenoid sleeves and nyliners. It fixed the stickly left flipper in the lower playfield easily. I discovered a spring washer was missing from one assembly and couldn’t buy one locally, so I ordered some online, along with some other hardware. Then the top left flipper began to stutter. I found an old forum thread called ‘flipper stutter’ and cleaned the contacts on the end of stroke switch, with no improvement. Today I installed a new switch and adjusted it, but it still stutters. I’ll do some more research and figure it out. I plan to go back to Kansas City in March and there is a new pinball parts shop near the 403 Club. It might be the solenoid or maybe a transistor I think. It’s almost comical how these little things keep happening but I’m tired of ordering parts online repeatedly because the shipping costs are as much as the few parts I need. You guys might think it’s ridiculous how long this is taking me, but the journey is fun and I’m constantly learning new stuff that will come in handy.

Nice YouTube video. I like the blue and clear finned posts on the lower playfield, plus the blue Titan bands. Where did you get those small white flippers for the lower playfield?

I still like how it looks, especially with those new transparent targets. Colored LEDs will make them even more pronounced.

I bought one of these overlays from him and have a spare upper playfield to put it on someday. His forum name is kwietsch. The scan is very good, almost perfect. But there is a slight overlap or something. I think an entire new scan would be great to archive. There is also a company in Canada that can jet print the image directly to a sanded and primed playfield, but nobody has created vector art for them yet. I think they are offering a free printing for whoever creates the vector art.

As for the side stencils, I would love to get a set but don’t have the space in a shop to use them, so they would probably go to waste. I hope they create them though for future restorations.

We have seen Elektra come a long way in just a couple years with new plastics and more. New scans and stencils will take it even farther and ensure quality restoration resources.

Now if I can just figure out how to fix mine...

I was soldering some loose connections under the playfield and noticed the self test button inside the coin door had a poor connection on the yellow wire. I soldered it again and then it wouldn’t go into self test mode. I unsoldered it and touched the bare wire to the bracket, which made it work. I remembered that originally it was grounded to the bracket, which I couldn’t explain. There is a photo of it in this thread at post #418. Do these buttons have a specific way to be installed? Did I install it backwards? I looked for other threads to answer this but came up empty. It just doesn’t seem right to ground it this way instead of connecting it to a post.

They don’t make these flippers any more, that I know of. Go back to page 10 of this thread, posts 463-465, for some that can work. Lots of people are looking for these flippers for their games and they rarely come up for sale on eBay or anywhere else. Good luck and I hope you find some!

I recently saw some 2" flippers on Marco's site that might work for the lower playfield, even if the shafts were swapped. Has anyone tried these? They have red ones in a photo, but say they are pink in the description.

Does anyone have a switch matrix chart for Elektra?