I'll need to see a high quality scan of the schematic from e.g. Staples ($2) or Kinkos ($6)

It sounds like the coin unit is not resetting. Try to manually reset the coin unit. Also, check the circuit switches that send power to the coin unit reset solenoid...

Coin unit zero switch - brown/yellow wire and jumper wire
Start trip relay switch - yellow wire and brown/yellow wire

Make sure these switches are clean and adjusted properly...

If the Player Reset relay isn't activating when this happens, diagnose this circuit with Alligator clip jumper wires.

Pinball (resized).png

Someone's been having a little unsupervised fun with the rules of your game...

But first, this is interesting because the #5 M.B. and #4 M.B. relays in your photos (as well as the #1 M.B. and #3 M.B. relays in the schematic) each have two coils and three solder lugs, just like flipper coils do. I've not see that before. Can anyone elaborate on what these are and how they're used?
Bally Gator relay 5 (resized).jpg
Back to your green-red wire. The schematic shows the orange and white-blue wires you have on the #5 M.B. relay as well as the jumper to its own normally closed (NC) switch. It does not show the green-red wire, or the brown jumper to somewhere on the #4 M.B. relay. Those look like hacks someone added perhaps to change the rules. If you can trace the green-red wire it would help figure out where it comes from and where it should really go to instead of the #5 M.B. relay. The alternative is to find all of the green-red wires (42-?) in the schematic and see which one is missing.

/Mark

Hi
MarkG --- I also had a look at the schematics --- Bally now and then did some funny things (remember "Delay-Relay, motorized Trip-Bank, resistor on (Tilt- ) Hold-Relay").
Me guessing: Two coils with "Hold-Functionality" instead of mounting a relay to trip in a relay-bank ? Greetings Rolf

It looks like they needed a fast-acting coil because switches like #4 wouldn't necessarily stay closed very long. Then once on, the relay coil would run too hot on just that 18-ohm winding, so the rest of the coil is cut in.
.................David Marston

Fast acting, or higher strength? Initially the 18 ohm winding would make the relay much stronger (much like a flipper coil) until the relay fires. I wonder if maybe the dual winding relays have more switches to throw than the other relays and therefore need to be stronger, at least initially?

Wow, dual windings on the pop bumper solenoids too...

The wire colors in the photo look more like the wire colors on the right thumper bumper in the schematic:
Bally Gator right thumper bumper (resized).jpg
Could these be what's in the photo? Does either thumper bumper fire the #5 M.B relay?

Is the problem that the game is stuck in 4 player mode? If so, here are some things to look into:
Bally Gator Coin Unit (resized).jpg
The middle part of this schematic shows that the Player Reset relay should fire when the Player Up Unit Disc matches the Coin Unit Disc. In other words, if the Coin Unit says there are 2 players, the Player Reset relay should fire when the Player Up Unit Disc is on player 2 (and the ball drains). The schematic shows the Coin Unit Disc in the player 1 position. But your game is behaving as if the Coin Unit Disc is stuck in the 4 player position meaning that the Player Reset relay only fires once the Player Up Unit Disc is on player 4 using the path highlighted in red.

There are a couple of ways this could be misbehaving. First the Coin Unit could not be resetting as fredsmythson mentioned in reply #3. Find the Coin Unit in your game and with the power off push in the plungers of both solenoids (one at a time) to see that it can advance and reset from any position easily. It could need a good cleaning if it can't do that.

If the Coin Unit works well with the power off, manually advance it to player 2, 3 or 4. Then turn on the power and start a game, and check the Coin Unit. It should have reset to the 1 player position. If not, examine the switches on the left side of the schematic to see if they're working. Since your Ball Count Reset solenoid seems to be working, the Start Trip relay switch is probably ok too, but the Coin Unit Zero switch (on the Coin Unit) might not be closing properly.

If all that seems to be working, it could be that you have a bad connection on the Coin Unit. Notice how the 4 player path in red bypasses the Coin Unit altogether. If you had a bad connection between the Coin Unit Disc and the 75 (orange-white) wire that goes to the Ball Return relay, that would make the game appear to be stuck in 4 player mode too. You can check this by clipping your ohm meter on the orange-white wire on the Ball Return relay and the three wires that lead from the Player Up Unit to the Coin Unit (91/grey-red, 56/white-brown and 53/white-yellow) one at a time. You should be able to measure something close to 0 ohms (not just continuity) for each of those three connections if the Coin Unit is in the right position.

/Mark

As a simple recommended tip before digging through the game schematics any further.

Clean the game, rebuild assemblies, and burnish contacts on switches (including relays) BEFORE making adjustments or added technical troubleshooting.

You are already jumped far ahead in basic EM restoration, skipped checks, and often times MANY multiple problems can be resolved at once through basic maintenance which has not been properly executed.

After which you must be methodical from the entire Bally game startup procedures. This is not just a "courtesy" inspection of components. There is a lot of guessing which I noticed from posting, although good advice. This problem is specific to initialization, as the game is not resetting the player relay(s), and unlikely continuity, but you won't know until you eliminate basic sources of problems. It is like chasing an alligator tail.

If you really get stuck afterwards, you may contact me as one of the few collectors in the entire world whom own both Gator and it's brother game, German export, Alligator, along with understanding most of the Ted Zale "zipper flipper" titles, their specific features, and Bally game functionality.

Keep flipping.