I've fixed up my Police Force & added little mods to my Aerosmith so I felt pretty confident about doing a resto on my dad's F-14 Tomcat. I love this game it's need need of some help. I've been reading up here seeing what other people have done so I moved it to my house & got to ordering parts. LEDs, springs, coil sleeves, rubber set, belts for the beacons, lamp holders to add the 2 flashers, stickers, etc.

it needs a new battery holder and I'm feeling OK about puling the board so I can solder the new one on. i'm not great at soldering my I had to do some on the police force to repair the GI solenoid board & it was fine. besides my dad bought it from TNT about 20 years ago and they obviously had pulled the board before. they numbered all the wire sockets & tails so it should be an easy enough process unplug / replug them.

i smelled very musty. so much so that it was taking over the house. I used clear ammonia to deal w/ that. wiped the whole thing down inside & out. found black gunk inside near the coin door that I assume started out as a spilled beer on the glass a decade or 2 ago. I'm pretty sure this was my problem. it cleaned up surprisingly well & my musty smell is gone!
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After playing a couple game my wife comments about the insert decals being worn away so I order a set of those too. I started ripping it apart yesterday & cleaning the playfield w/ the ammonia when I realized, there's mylar over the decals. I'm sure all of you would have known that immediately and it was right there in front of me but it didn't click in my head what that meant. honestly I wouldn't in a million years assumed that TNT would have put mylar over the worn out insert decals. I've been reading the board & watching videos trying to decide if I peel the mylar & fix the inserts or just leave it as is. this seems like a little more than I bargained for. I don't want to damage the thing. most of the insert decals look fine & I wasn't going to do anything to them. it's mainly down at the lower playfield. now that I realize it's the mylar that's making the upper playfield look less than perfect, I'm feeling that shit needs to get replaced. after reading the board I've seen lots of posts saying as an armature, don't do it. I could do more harm that good & others saying it'll be fine, just time consuming. Should I give it a try using the freeze can / goof off method or just fix the ballance?

these need repair
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these are ok
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my other issue is how the hell do I peel this TNT sticker off w/o messing up the Williams logo painted under it? any tips
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same w/ these packing tape marks. any tips on cleaning them up w/o hurting the paint? by the way, my dad has never moved this pinball which means TNT sold it to him w/ this packing tape on it. how could this be? was it just so long ago that it was before they restored tables?
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I was just checking out the hardtops. didn't realize that was a thing. very cool. looks like I'll wait for one of those & just clean what I have for now. the though of resetting all the inserts, cleaning the paint off them, peeling the mylar, scraping the glue, & then installing a new mylar. WOW! just way more than I bargained for. too bad I already purchased the insert decals.

good news is, my police force doe not have mylar of it so doing those insert decals seems reasonable.

goo be gone it is for the sticker & tape. good to hear that won't eat the paint. thanks

luckily it all works. (except for the battery holder giving me the adjust error) some of it's a little slow or the balls occasionally get stuck. i'm pretty sure cleaning, springs, & sleeves will fix the stuck areas. i've got a whole lot of rubber & LEDs to install so back to cleaning the playfield.

thanks again.

like you're jets on it. my wife keeps asking if I've ordered jets yet. I told her 1st I've to find some I like.

working on lamps & cleaning today. just pulled the beacons & about to replace their belts.

I just checked those out, very nice. I'm gonna just keep moving forawrd w/ a 1/2 restoration.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/demand-check-f14-tom-cat

found my postage stamp jets last night! they'll be perfect. not sure how I'm mounting / lighting them yet but I've got plenty of other shit to work on before then anyway.

I've never done it before but the directions I saw were use a het gun on the underside of the table & then pop out the inserts. clean them, use rubbing alcohol to remove any lettering, touch up the paint around the insert hole, glue the inserts back in the table, apply the decals. they are stickers w/ some sort of special treatment that the guy who prints them says you do not need to clear over them. most people I saw on here said to clear it to be safe.

in my case I was gonna remove the mylar, tape off the inserts, clean off the lettering, apply the decals, & then install new mylar. i'm not doing it now but that's the 1/2 assed way I was gonna deal w/ it. if any inserts were high, I guess I would have tried heating / leveling them but there's no way I'm up for popping them all out. that's a whole other level of resto.

luckily my Police Force doesn't have mylar so I will be trying that set of decals out on it w/ my tape off the inserts try cleaning the lettering off the insert w/o fucking up the playfield plan.

here are my notes about the beacons. I know to you guys this will be all known stuff but I'm just throwing it out there anyway in case another noob drops by

1st, the 3 lamps are evidently considered flashers even though mine don't flash & they have a larger socket than the other flashers. since the LED set doesn't include flashers, it didn't come w/ these either. I don't know if there's an LED option for these but I just ordered a box of regular #1683 lamps.

2nd, I needed to replace my belts & for some reason the belt ran between the wires feeding the motor & lamps which mean to replace the belt I had to pull the motor. good news is the whole beacon assembly drops out by removing 4 screws & wires have a quick release. now I could throw it on table to work on. removing the motor then was just 3 screws & an allen set screw.

3rd, I pointed all 3 beacons in the same direction so they spin together. is this how most people do it? I considered staggering them.

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I've also installed a pile of LEDs already. I don't seem to be working in any particular order. Comet Pinball didn't supply a map showing which lamps go where but they are sorted into labeled bags which has been all the hand holding needed.

good to know. what's the glue you use when resetting them in place? the Police Force has several that are raised enough to effect gameplay.

I already ordered the others. besides, the old ones still work. shame I didn't see this sooner. thanks

I threw in the rest of the LEDs but ran out of white GI lights from my kit. (5 short) I'm assuming I put something in the wrong place. I ended up having to use an insert lamp up at the very top of the table & 4 frosted blue lamps at the lanes. turns out I have 8 red & 8 blue insert lamps left over.

each set of 3 targets has 2 lights sort of under / between them. I was assuming these were GI so I used the frosted white here. are they considered insert lamps? if so, do people used colored lamps there?

also at the 3 locked on gates there are a set of red & blue lamps w/ little rubber booties over the lamps. I have colored lamps for there but do people still put the rubber booties back on?

Really happy how the pop bumper turned out. Got the metal decal off ebay & the led ring is from comet pinball.

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so happy I ordered the keychain. now I just need to find one (that I like & that isn't $50) for my Police Force.

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I got most of it back together & working. I didn't install the clear shields yet because I'm still waiting on the sticker set for them. They're about a week or 2 overdue but covid & all I'm assuming they are just running late.

Only problem left is the game isn't noticing when a ball drains. Veither one if the 4 switches under there is not registering the ball or maybe I loaded the wrong # of balls. I put 4 in it. Guess I'll check the manual.

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looks like the same issue here w/ fix suggestions
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ball-feed-issue-williams-system-11-f-14-tomcat

thanks, I'll go thru it this afternoon after I'm done teaching 1st grade to my son.

Didn't get back to the Tomcat today but my decals finally came.

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love your leveling / heating tool

I'm still working on my F-14 Tomcat pinball but I mounted my 2 Postage Stamp die-cast jets yesterday and love how they came out. They are #5383-3 & #5344-1. For the F-14 I drilled out a pop rivet on the triangular shaped clear plastic guard & put a screw through that & into the jet. I had to bent the metal bracket that holds the triangle to the upper piece of clear plastic a little so I could get the glass back on. since the rocket on the underside of the jet fell in the crack between the 2 pieces of plastic, 1 screw held it tight. I left he stickers from the "Yagov and Lift Off Stickers set" off these pieces so it looked more like the jet was flying. For the Mig, I see guys on here mention "crafting wire" but I don't know what that shit is. For mine, I cut 1 of the wires off of a paint roller & used that. It's chrome & super stiff so I was able to bend it into shape & use the existing nut holding the plastic piece down the secure it. The wire just happened to fit snugly into one of the hole on the bottom of the jet & then it's bent at a 90 so the jet is resting on the wire sitting between the rockets. this meant I could bolt down the wire & then snap the jet on. it's surprisingly study. even in game play I haven't see it shake or move at all. I still need to light them. I have some spotlights and ordered some tiny red & white 5v LEDs but I don't have plan yet.

I'm missing 1 piece of playfield plastic. I had a cut piece of plexi that was being used but it stuck out like a sore thumb. I used the leftover stickers to cover it & though it's the wrong image, it looks fine.

Previously I had re-done the pop bumper w/ a LED ring from Comet Pinball & a decal?mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5337059215&customid=&toolid=10001&mkevt=1" target="_blank">ebay.com link: itm from Metal Mods Chrome Caps. It looks great but seems tired. I ordered a rebuild kit.

All the lamps were replace w/ a Comet Pinball LED kit and this w/o a doubt made the biggest different. The colored LED made a dramatic improvement.

I installed the "Yagov and Lift Off Stickers set" as well as a new Kill Yagov sticker. IMHO these really help make it look like a new machine.

as for my issue when the ball drains, there was more than 1 problem. yes I have a weird switch issue that I still didn't figure out but the ball lane feeder was rubbing on it's solenoid. when the solenoid opened up all the way, the feeder would get stuck there. I took it all apart & put it back together multiple times but couldn't figure out how to get a little bit more space in there. finally I fixed it by adding a fender washer under one of the ball lane return mounting screws so the washer kept it from rocking all the way down. it's still rubbing the solenoid but at least it doesn't get stuck there.

as for my switch issue. I have to get back on that. for now it's playing so we're enjoying it for the weekend.

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thank you, the playfield insert decals are more worn than I'd like but everything else came out really nice. The colored LEDs make all the difference in the world. I'm really thrilled w/ it & we love the 2 jets. looking forward to lighting them up.