Quoted from Scorpius:It's likely a gapping issue on the leaf contacts. The hole that target comes up through is pretty tight. If you remove it from under the playfied you can gap the contacts a bit more and it should fix it. I had a similar issue on the "O"
This ^^^
believe it or not, it took me me a few hours to properly tune the leafs to actually activate without getting bashed.
They should activate with a ball BARELY touching.
It is really a trial and error because of how the assembly is designed, not all Sterns are like this one. In other words, the leafs switches at the gargoyles are actually tricky to tune properly.
Issues you will encounter:
- if the gap is more than 1/8" you switch might activate or not (it will require a lot of ball power.
- if it is less than 1/16" you might find the switch is closed (activated) when mounted
Some tips (I spent 4 hours tuning mine last week)
- try to follow the already created thread inside the pf when mounting / unmounting. If you strip the PF, it will be hard to repair because it is close to the edge. To follow the current thread, before screwing the screw in, unscrew it until you hear a click, then screw it down (it makes a HUGE difference)
- use a LEAF adjusted tool, if you do not have one, buy one immediately. Do not ruin your switches with long nose pliers. These are easy to bend with the adjuster and much easier to ruin with long nose pliers. do not use long nose pliers.
The adjuster will make an easy job of this.
-do not adjust the leaf from inside the game without taking them off, it will not work. Unmount the bracket and take leaf off and out of the PF, adjust, re install.
- You will not get it right the first time, so take your time.
When testing your adjustments, start the game, go to test, switches and close the coin door to get power.
Use a light touch, barely touching the switches should trigger them, if you need to really push the gargoyle contraption to activate the leaf, your adjustment is incorrect. Try again.
Another thing to note, you gargoyle clamp (L shape metal piece) can change the switch gap as it slides left to right. This will trip you if you do not caught it ahead of time (ask he how I know).
Last, each leaf will have an slightly different setting (welcome to the world of pinball inaccuracies and lack of attention to detail at the factory - Thanks Stern - ) so do not assume that because the previous leaf work with a specific gap, the next one will work the same.
This is the most annoying part of the entire game, but once dialled in you are all set.
Take your time