Hi everyone. I have a Elvira House of Horrors. It's an early build. I love it and it quickly became one of my favorites. However it has one problem the is driving me crazy. I've asked this question in the EHOH Owner's Club topic but I think I was too vague with describing my problem. No answers that helped. I'm thinking I have a defective build. I've now got video and pictures! LOL.

Anyway, the issue is that about 5 times a game when I plunge the ball it gets stuck under the first gate located behind the house and above the pop bumpers. The Skill shot object is to plunge the ball easy enough to drop it into the back door hole and not to hard so it loops all the way around the rear loop and out to the flippers. My issue is that too soft of a plunge and it ends up resting behind the gate on the ball guide just before the guide bends down towards the back door hole. I then need to shake the whole game to get it to dislodge and slip back down into the pops.

I've tried increasing the slope of the PF to let gravity pull it out. This helps however then game play is way too fast for my taste. I have the angle already set at recommended settings. This tells me other don't have this problem at the proper angle. I've also removed the ball guide and gave it a bend outward into the ball trail to help the ball roll out from under the gate. This improved the hangup about 50%. Before I was getting at least 10 hang ups a game.

It's not only me and my technique. I've had non pinball playing friends come over to play and it happened to them.

I'll post a YouTube link to a video of this happening and some pictures of a look at the area. I'll also post a few pics. Any ideas or suggestions will be welcomed. At last resort I'll call Stern or the place I bought it from, "Little Shop of Games". Great guys! If it's a manufacture defect I may need new parts? Here's the youtube vid and some pics. Thanks for your insight:

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Thanks everyone for the suggestions and tips. Sounds like the gate or flap is too low. I like the idea of getting a new gate. I'll pursue that avenue.

I want to continue playing this game cause I love it so. Till I get the new gate I'll try a couple washers under the attachment points to raise it a bit. The problem is (if you look at the first picture under the video) the backboard plastic sits over the gate and it's top nut won't allow the assembly to move up any higher. I'll have to see if I can work around that. IT's not too hard to get to the attachment screws as there ar only the two seen in the picture. The gate just hangs over the ball trail from the front. It's not attached in the back (Thank God). I may be stuck with my only option of getting a new gate that will lift the door higher.

Now if only I can get that damned crypt kickout Vac dialed in. However that's another problem for another thread.

I'll keep this thread posted on the gate. Thanks again!

I think I have this fixed. Thanks for the support and ideas. I actually ended up following them all. LOL.

First I removed the whole gate assembly bracket. In doing so I found there is a little adjustment between the hole sizes and the two blots used to anchor the unit down to the ball rail. This allowed me (after I reinstalled it) to twist the front of the gate towards the backboard and pull it down towards the orbit above the pops. Granted it was only about 1/16 of and inch it looked like a mile. I think this gives the ball a little more room to start rolling with less friction from the gate door.

While I had the unit out of the game I removed the drop down gate from the rest of the bracket. I did this by pulling out the hardened wire it pivots on. I had to cut off the smashed end that kept it in place (when replacing it I had to smash it flat again with a hammer to anchor it in). Once the drop down gate was out I put it in a vise along the edge of the bend and bent it upwards a little giving it less of an angle. In theory this would help it raise higher off the playfield.

I also did one more thing to the drop down gate before reinstalling it back into the assembly bracket. The bottom edge closet to the PF has a lip bent inward. I noticed this lip would drag against the ball as it tried to slip out from under the gate after it was trapped from the soft plunge. I put that lip into my vice and smashed it flat a bit. I probably took out 75% of the lip. The result is that the ball slips out with less friction from a sharp edge pointed back at the ball.

The result is that I'm not having the problem anymore I show above. The ball slips out just fine when caught behind the gate. I have no idea which fix did the trick. Maybe all of them. Bottom line is something is not right with my game and I'm still not sure what it is. I've got a workaround that will probably last forever. Hopefully.

Thanks again for all your help. It gave me the direction I needed.

After the fix and playing I've noticed an odd thing.

As stated I had to remove the house and gate assembly to repair this issue then reattach everything when fixed. I've had this house removed once already in the past but not the gate assembly. Before this last removal and reassembly I was struggling to break 500,000,000. I was playing my butt off and a few times I completed Gapa Angry, Attic Attack and all the house haunts. (I play 5 balls). Now that the fix is complete and working my score has jumped to commonly scoring over 5,000,000,000.

What could have changed? It certainly wasn't my game play. I've had better games before my fix and my scores are more then 6 times greater now. Is scoring above 3,000,000,000 usual with this game?

I'm no wizard. LOL. I have lucky games once in a while but nothing that would explain a 6x increase. I guess I need to do a switch edge test to see if there are any closed switches that should be open. I see no issues in game play or sound call outs. I'll keep this thread posted.

Thanks for the advice. The problem did turn out to be a misaligned ramp opto. It's the right ramp that turns around over the pops. Every time the pops would go off the ramp opto would register like a ball was going through it. Seems every time the ramp shook the opto would move and see the edge of the peep hole it's shining through. Double scoring and all the stuff that goes with making a ramp shot just just from a ball in the pops. LOL.

Now I'm back to normal scoring. Kind of a let down seeing the smaller scores. I thought I was really something there for a while. LOL.

Well, after a few games I was still getting a few phantom opto triggers on the right ramp. I think I finally fixed my problem though. Finally found that the "U" shaped opto bracket that wraps under the ramp was spread out a touch far. This sent the beem upwards instead of horizontally. Also the screws that held the opto boards on the bracket were a touch lose. Bending the "U" bracket in a little and tightening down the boards seems to totally eliminate the phantom opto triggering. Such a little thing to make it appear so broke. LOL!