Miatawnt2b, thanks for the link. I had not seen this and will look it over. I’ll probably be back with questions when I dig into this.

Playfield swap coming along nicely.

Installed some double ring post at the top to stop getting balls jammed under the 1 ring.

Buthamburgh playfield looks amazing, Reese Rails, CPR Plastics and have the Mirrored back glass, clear Freeplay40 ramp and Comet 2smd Warm White and some color in the inserts.

Can't wait to get my butt kicked by it when it's done.

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Awesome!! Just got my F-14 playfield a couple months ago and can’t wait for the results Getting ready to build a rotisserie soon...

Take care, behind the rubbers theres a gate missing.
This is needed to prevent that balls get stucked under the plastic and break it!

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This is how it should look like original... left you see the reinstalled early/prototype flashers.

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Mine didn't come with that wire, I would get balls stuck under the Single ring when I first got it. I threw a second ring on it the way your pic looks and that solved the problem. Now we installed proper double ring post so it should be fine.

Mine was the same, but I have a reinforced circuit to power up the coils for a more harder gameplay.
I call it Afterburner... and it really is.
So I decided to reinstall the early flashers and all gates and stuff, as how Williams had designed the game.
Man, believe me, this Tomcat is a hell of a bitch and extremly fast if the Afterburner is switched On.
And as Steve said: "You can't win!"

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So this is a strange one. Looks like the bottom half of my GI just stopped working. Did the lamp check and all of the playfield lamps are working and all of the flasher are working just nothing below the pink line on the GI. Are all of the GI bulbs connected together? Picture is of the GI test. I don't see any wires broken or anything on first glance. I also don't see anything in the manual on the GI wiring. It doesn't look like it's on the lamp matrix.

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From what I can tell so far the gi is all wired together. I guess that would have me hunting for a bad diode somewhere or broken wire. I wish there was some sort of diagram of how these lights are chained together but I'm not finding it so will just have to trace one after another.

No diodes on GI. I bet broken wire.

Ah you are right. I was looking at the wrong light. Will be on the hunt tonight

And you've checked the GI connector 3J8 on the power supply board? Not uncommon for them to be burnt to a crisp and needing re-termination/pinning.

Williams_1987_F_14_Tomcat_PS.pdf

How about checking the fuse?

I'll check both tomorrow. I was looking through the wiring tonight and couldn't find any that were obviously broken. I know visual is not enough but my meter is not here today. Will have it back tomorrow. My guess is the wiring starts in the right middle and goes counter clockwise up and then to the middle. Once it goes into the bundles it's hard to trace. The last light in the GI that looks lit to me is the one in the pop bumper.

I would have thought that a blown fuse would cause all of it to go out and not just half. I don't see two fuses in the diagrams for GI.

Everything else with the machine appears to be normal.

There are 4 fuses for the GI. 2 for the playfield and 2 for the backbox. I high lighted them in the pic. You must remove them to test them.

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Awesome highlighting job GRUMPY
JK

As always thank you. Will take a look.

It's the best I can do, as I'm old and stupid.

There is a lot of corrosion on fuse 3 and 4 so I think I need to replace this fuse block. I now have the bottom GI playfield and bottom GI backglass non functional but I think the latter is due to the corrosion and not being able to get a good contact with the connector. On the playfield I have a short somewhere and there appears to be some char on the fuse block. I put a new fuse in and watched it glow when I turned on the power. Any tips on how to find a short would be helpful.

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I've had one particularly problematic socket and it could be the issue here as well. Was taking a closer look at it and it looks like it could be shorting on the casing. Anyone know what part number it is for the lamp socket? Might as well replace the whole thing. It's the left pop bumper bottom light.

This looks close but not sure https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/077-5010-00

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Get a little screwdriver in there and bend that tab back up so it's not touching.

I did that but it did not seem to resolve the issue. Still no lights on the bottom playfield or bottom backbox. Since I've had issues with this specific socket I'd like to replace it. Always flickered even when it worked

You need a new fuse holder, so much corrosion.

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Yeah it's quite bad. Marcos has this one that looks like it would work

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/FHSM4

Going to order that and a bunch of fuses.

What are the best settings for tournament play? I turned off the extra balls. But when "flight insurance" is lit, no bonus was counted.

Thank you for your help!

I have read now on papa.org. The Flight Insurance have also turned off.

Almost there just have a original sound issue to fix and install the CPR Mirrored backglass to call this one done. I'm not restoring the cabinet or the Tax stickers it has nostalgia to us. This F14 was my first pin now it will look and play great for years.

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Thanks for the help on this Grumpy. I replaced the fuse holder and all worked. I guess the short was that socket and the corrosion didn't help anything. Working great now and I replaced 85% of the lights with LED's now. Happy with how it's looking.

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Sold my f14 to my neighbor and he mentioned sometimes when the upper right flipper flips the kick back coil fires...

I haven’t gone over yet to trace them out, and see if it’s wiring or a board issue, but boards were all sent out for repair, solenoid saver fuse block installed. Any one have heard of that? I almost thought it could be a switch too tight

Playball!

northvibe could be diode on the flipper?

Hmmm I’ll test it! Hopefully I can run over there this weekend

My Jagov and my kickback were both activating when a few of my flipper diodes were broken. Definitely first thing I would check!

Oh interesting. I think I have some 1n4004's, maybe i'll shot gun all the flippers.

Joined the club yesterday. I'm kind of bummed because what I bought has more issues than I thought (I anticipated primarily just cabinet bruises, but it turns out I've got raised inserts--not surprising--and need to do a whole lot of adjusting)..I suppose I should have assumed this kind of condition and passed, as I really wasn't looking to take on another project after moving my eight ball deluxe to someone else's to-do list so I didn't have to do it.

The mylar is pretty gross on this but as I'm in no shape to strip it down, touch up, level inserts, and clear it, I guess I'm rolling with it as is. Hopefully I can make all the adjustments it needs and just play it for a bit. Right away I think I like it better than the high speed I've been hardtopping. I'll probably just sell that when I'm done and focus on making F-14 a lot nicer than it is now. It really is a great game.

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The mylar is pretty gross on this but as I'm in no shape to strip it down, touch up, level inserts, and clear it, I guess I'm rolling with it as is. Hopefully I can make all the adjustments it needs and just play it for a bit. Right away I think I like it better than the high speed I've been hardtopping. I'll probably just sell that when I'm done and focus on making F-14 a lot nicer than it is now. It really is a great game.[quoted image]

I’m in the same boat. Will wait on the Mylar replacement a while and just enjoy playing the game.

Congrats on joining the club!

I just removed my mylar and it came off perfect with no art damage .Used heat instead of freeze.The glue cleanup is a lot of work though.

Really, I got what $1400 probably gets you on this one. I don't think I did horribly, it's just rougher than I understood it to be. Rookie mistake, hopefully I'll learn from it for next time.

I'll fix the maintenance items (re-sleeving/replacing flipper coils and adjusting right sling/pop switches), clean it, and shovel LEDs into it, then play it. I likely won't go after mylar removal until a hardtop is announced and/or I finish hardtopping my high speed. I really don't enjoy tearing machines down far enough to clear or hardtop though, so hopefully I can get it playing "okay" as is. It's a really cool game--i like it a lot!

Does anyone sell a diverter clear plastic cover? I see some people have a cover with a decal on it.

I hooked up a pinduino into the flasher board and placed an addressable LED strip along the top part of the diverter to make that area a bit more dynamic so I’d like to keep the diverter visible but covered so it looks a bit more finished.

Also I posted in tech, but maybe someone here can help me track down the last gremlin in my machine. My 1K and upper right T won’t light up and I can’t figure out why. I tried reseating the plugs as someone suggested but to no avail. What else can I check?

Test the diodes.

I assume this is a dumb question but I'll ask anyway.. Is there any way to change the top (rear) GI bulbs without removing half of the crap on the playfield?

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I’m in the middle of replacing bulbs too. I don’t see how it can be done without removing many parts including the upper left section with the 3 habitrails. It’s not difficult to do and makes cleaning and waxing easier.

I replaced most from the under side. Some are easier from the top but most are easier underneath if you are not looking to remove everything.

You might be able to do these from underneath but I doubt an LED will go through the hole.

Was really hoping to not have to go to that level of disassembly to do it, but ultimately I'll have to do whatever I need to do in order to get it done. Can't half-do an LED job for GI! I already need to go buy some wedges for the controlled lights that use PC boards. Blah.

It’s really not that hard.
1) have a long Phillips screwdriver with a magnetic tip plus some storage containers.
2) go slow and take lots of pictures and notes.
3) while you have things apart clean and wax hard to reach areas and replace plastics that are broken.

Haven't given in yet and plucked the ramps off, but I will. You're right, it's not THAT bad.. Just wasn't something I planned on tackling right away. But I gotta finish these LEDs.

I did hit 2mil a couple of times (well, 1.95 this morning, 2.04 yesterday). I'm really enjoying this game. When I have it fully dialed in--pop still isn't as 'sharp' as it probably needs to be, right sling still doesn't kick as hard as I'd like, and the flippers probably need rebuilt--i think this will absolutely be one of my favorites in my lineup.. And has likely usurped High Speed, which I've all but decided will be leaving once I finish this hardtop.

I wasn't completely convinced I made a great decision buying this, given its rough aspects, but I'm in love with the game.. It was worth it.

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Oh, and I disassembled the right flipper because it felt like it was catching a lot of resistance..I assumed the coil/sleeve were bad (the sleeve IS stuck in the coil, so I'll replace both when I actually rebuild them), but check out this spring that was shoved in! The one on the left was literally included with the machine...I have no idea.

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After 30 plus years there are bound to be fixes and hacks.

Glad you decided to dig in and pull parts off the playfield. Well worth the effort. I also found that a number of pads behind the targets have disintegrated so I’m taking the opportunity to replace them.

Yes, breaking 2 mil is difficult on mine too.

My pop bumper needs a tuneup as well. It needs to be sensitive to keep the action going in the upper playfield.