I've been enjoying this thread for a long time now as a lurker and want to give back now that my first EM restoration is complete. Thanks to Vid and his excellent restoration post and those of you who dove right in to your pinball restoration, I decided to restore my 1969 Williams Expo. It certainly needed it! For more pictures and the whole story, including my mistakes, visit:http://www.pecos-softwareworks.com/my_first_full_pinball_restore.shtml

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The backglass looks better in the picture than actual

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Bottom playfield before - rodent scat hiding under apron!

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Middle playfield before showing missing paint

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Top playfield before showing the lame and ugly vinyl pop bumper protectors

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Bottom playfield restored - nailed the aqua color touch-up!

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Middle playfield restored - inserts filled in and black and red touched-up

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Top playfield restored - blue areas under pop bumpers a real challenge; had a go with waterslide decals

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Playfield view after four clearcoats

Wax and Mylar was applied to playfield before adding the playfield parts - should be good for another 46 years!

Thanks again to all who inspired me to attempt this very challenging project.

Here's a video of my 1969 Williams Expo EM pinball after restoration. I always enjoyed playing this game but it was slow and the pop bumpers would barely send the ball off in another direction. During the restore I paid extra special attention to the pop bumpers, all five of them. They were completely disassembled and cleaned. New nylon coil sleeves were purchased to replace the old aluminum sleeves. Yes, this machine had aluminum coil sleeves. The plungers were lightly sanded with 400 grit sandpaper to get some of that black patina off of them. The spoon switches were set tight. The flipper and slingshot coil sleeves were also replaced with nylon sleeves to improve performance. The playfield was Mylared and waxed. The back 3" leg levelers were set high and the front leg levelers were set low for maximum playfield ball speed.

The result was amazing! This is how the machine must have played back in the early '70s - and I didn't need to replace any other parts to put real "POP" back into the pop bumpers.

Who says these EMs can't be fast and fun? You really can breathe life back into these old games! Expo now plays every bit as good as it looks.

For more pictures see: http://www.pecos-softwareworks.com/my_first_full_pinball_restore.shtml

Nice looking game.

Page 23 of the Hang Glider manual 1A - 5A (PDF) shows you how to make the change:
http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/1112/Bally_1976_Hang_Glider.pdf

Don't know how cool this is. It won't be cool at all if you don't like flipperless:

Manufacturer: Bally
Game/Type: Air Force / EM Flipperless 1 Player
Year: 1941
Production: Unknown
Cost: $150 OBO
Location: Altoona, PA
Link/Contact: altoona.craigslist.org link

Condition: No Pics! Must be pretty rare - there are no pics of playfield on IPDB. OP: "Works"

And I don't know how it would have been called Air Force in 1941 since the U.S. Air Force wasn't founded until September 18, 1947. Serendipity?

Well, now I know where one of the other 54 Double-Ups are! I'll use this opportunity to share mine with you:

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backglass_installed_flash_(resized).jpg

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cabinet_finished_full_playfield_(resized).jpg

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Nic's got his Expo!!

I'd recognize the side of that backbox anywhere.

Now, I want you to wipe that frown off your face and post some pics of of one of your favorite games with a huge smile on your face!

Congratulations Nic!