just joined the club and wondering about the following things (pls excuse as this is my first Sys11 game):

when game is turned on by the main switch there is two things happening:
1. some short duration (~1s) non constant high pitch variegate noise form the speaker (I´m not talking about the "bong" when there is a fault on the game) -maybe from some charging effect from some capacitor or a voltage regulator...
2. the yagov kicker is firing always once when game is turned on.

No faults reported on machine
Boards (caps) not rebuilt yet but working fine

Is that behaviour normal on those machines?

thx!

No, rebuild the power supply and retest.

Forgot to mentimention that it is an early game with Proto ROMs if that makes a difference

Joined the club yesterday, mask and gloves pickup. I had only played the game a couple of times at shows and it never clicked. But playing it at home has given me a much better appreciation for it. Rules are simple, but the game is not easy. I have to say that the mb start with lights and sounds may be the best in all of pinball.

My game is in very good shape, previous owner put some love into it. Mylar has been removed and I can't find any paint loss. A couple of inserts have slight lettering that has peeled off, but pretty minor.

Beacons fully working. Really great game. It's my first system 11, hope I'm not in for any surprises.

IMG_20200427_131559_850 (resized).jpg

Center Beacon burning my eyes!!!

Hello, I am new to pinball ownership. I just acquired a pretty used F-14 Tomcat machine, however, overall seems to be in pretty good working shape. it not fully functioning as I understand some fuses and batteries need to be replaced, rubbers changed, parts lubed, etc. the outside paint is pretty rough and I am wondering if there is an argument for leaving it original and just cleaning it up, or a full restoration like I have seen on the forums? I also don't really have the time or expertise to renovate. is this something work having a local shop do? Thanks!

IMG_4627 (resized).jpg

IMG_4619 (resized).jpg

IMG_4620 (resized).jpg

IMG_4625 (resized).jpg

IMG_4626 (resized).jpg

IMG_4621 (resized).jpg

IMG_4622 (resized).jpg

IMG_4623 (resized).jpg

It really is a matter of personal preference. Some people like some arcade patina on their machines and would leave it cosmetically as is. HEP (High End Pins), which you can find here on Pinside, can take a pin like yours and literally make it better than new. You can see examples of other F14 restorations he has done here on Pinside. The challenge is that you’re talking about a $9-$10k restoration. Check out his work. It is gorgeous. The downside is that for a title like F14, you will likely never get your money back out of it.
I would imagine a pin tech that is local to you could get it in relatively good working and playing order for under $2k. Again, this is just an estimation and it may be far less or far more depending on what is not working with your specific machine. You may be able to do it yourself by checking out Pinside forums, watching YouTube videos, buying necessary parts and tools, and dedicating quite a bit of time to learning and repair.
That’s my 2 cents. Good luck with whatever you decide. F14 is a fantastic machine! It was my first and it will not be leaving my place any time soon.

The very first thing you want to with this pin before you even turn it on is to check all the fuse values and make sure they are correct. Also remove the batteries if you dont know their age and replace. Look for any corrosion on the battery holder and on the board around the area where the battery holder is. (You might want to remove the battery holder and relocate off the board at a later date along with a few other things). https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/williams-system-11-bullet-proofing-thread. Then once you have checked that the machine is playing properly, I would slowly take apart the top of the playfield (taking lots of photos as you go) and give everything a really good cleaning. Give the playfield a good cleaning and waxing before you reassemble everything and put some new balls in it. These steps to begin with will make it look and play so much better and not cost much money at all. At this point you can either just play it as is and enjoy or dive into more tweaking and replacing/upgrading different parts of the game.

Sorry, forgot to mention that before you tear down the playfield, i would order a new rubber kit and replace them all as they look pretty rough in the photo. i would also order some new bulbs and replace while you have things apart during cleaning. You can go with standard bulbs or leds. You can also order a new playfield plastics set if you want (i see at least one of yours is broken). https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-plastics/f-14-tomcat/ .
Another cool mod is this decal package. ebay.com link: Williams F 14 Tomcat Pinball Decals Mod Yagov and Lift Off Stickers set Not at all necessary but looks really nice. I have them on my F14.

F-14 was the first pin I bought several years ago. One of the biggest problems with F-14 is the inserts raise up. The game comes from the factory with a sheet of mylar covering most of the playfield. I can see in your pictures there are some air bubbles around some of the inserts. That is the result of the inserts rising up. There are a bunch of tutorials on how to get these inserts to go back down and stay down, but this is time consuming and labor intensive. You said you don't have the time for a major restoration project. But if you really want this game to looks good and play properly, you are going to have to put some time into it. I really enjoyed fixing up my F-14. Getting everything working properly and looking decent was very rewarding. Good luck!

Thank you for all the input. I have some repair kits on order for rubber bumpers, fuses and lights. I will see what the situation is after that and hopefully I don't have any electrical issues beyond that. does the marketplace here have graphics files I can print stencils or graphics or vinyl's that can be purchases to cleanup the aesthetics of the machine? or is ebay best for parts?

If you are removing the mylar it's highly likely all of the insert graphics will come up or be ripped beyond repair. This place has replica stick on ones for however far into the restore process you want to go.

http://www.planetarypinball.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_Code=PP&Screen=PROD&Category_Code=GS-804&Product_Code=PPA-F14-INS

They have been great to me as well.

Marco is also a great source of parts
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/267

I've found ebay to be more expensive for a lot of the stuff I need for my F-14. Especially fuses and stuff.

Don't f*** with the mylar - sometimes you get lucky but you really have to know what you are doing.

My mylar had to be removed because the inserts were all raised which had pulled and bubbled the mylar horribly. It was hilarious watching the ball move on the playfield. It really was unplayable and after reseating a few and seeing that the mylar had stretched as well I knew I needed to remove mine. Plus the insert graphics were already pretty destroyed. Getting the mylar off wasn't too difficult. The upside down air can worked wonders but quite a few of the insert graphics did come up as well I just decided to replace all of them. The sticker sheet wasn't too expensive. I had no playfield damage due to the mylar removal though. Getting the glue off took a ton of work compared to the mylar. That was by far the worst part. Took about 2 weeks working in the evenings to get all the glue off. Took an hour to have the mylar off. I know what I never want to do again for sure and if I go to buy a machine with mylar/insert issues I won't be doing it again lol.

I looked into clearing my playfield but didn't find it to be worth the trouble. I just bought a playfield protector for it. Now it plays awesome, looks great, and I can read all the inserts

Someday I want to pull my ugly bubbling mylar but I won't risk it unless a hardtop exists, that way I know I have outs.

I was scared too but in the end it came right up once hit with the upside down air can. If it stuck a little much I just hit it again with the air. What I wasn't ready for was the areas where there was mylar was less faded and had less color degradation. Unless you are doing touchup, which I didn't do, you kinda learn to live with it. I figure once I sell mine it is a great candidate for someone to have a nice playfield restoration and then clear put over it. I just wanted it to be playable. Plus I did get mine for free so if I destroyed it I wasn't out much It's also really ready if they do ever make a hard top for it. Just have to sand it down really.

My cab is hella sucky (especially the head) so I'm not sure just now much money is worth putting into it. Not that I usually care, but this cab is pretty fuggo. I'd hardtop it in a second.

I took a pic after the first bit of mylar came off. I was surprised how little of it was actually attached to the wood. After I pulled that bit up I was no longer nervous and in a lot of cases the insert graphics were still intact. I ended up using some plastic razor blades to take off what was left of the lettering as it was really badly cracked and looked awful anyway. Second picture was when I had all of the mylar off and was still taking off the glue and lettering. The white stuff around some of the inserts is flower from the glue removal process. If I was doing a full restore I would replace the arrow inserts. They are all really faded and some are even cracked and warped from the heat of the insert lighting. Last picture is how it sits now with the playfield protector. It was a lot of work and it's a great start to a full restore but about as much money as I wanna put into it. I think I've got $800 into it now with most of that being the playfield protector and flipper rebuild kits/fuses/LED's/and some other repair. One thing I will caution about is do not use magic erasers on this paint. My only oops came from using a magic eraser. Everything was going smoothly until that.

IMG_20190831_175017186 (resized).jpgIMG_20190904_182230978 (resized).jpgIMG_20200322_154323903 (resized).jpg

My F-14 was in a similar condition, so I also removed the mylar. I also did not have any playfield damage, just a few insert decals came off. I used the hair dryer method and moved very slowly as I pulled it off. A product called "goo gone" worked really well for removing the glue from playfield.

Yeah I ended up using goo gone on mine as well. A lot of people said the flower method was great but it didn't work so well for me and made a huge mess. That adhesive was really on there lol. Even the goo gone had trouble but my basement smelled like oranges

Basement smelled like oranges, that's right! Brings back memories.

Working on a few more inserts that were raised. The thing is, you take one out, then you want to take them all out.

IMG_20200502_140424_050 (resized).jpg

What's the difference between a playfield protector and the mylar covering? Can I just put a playfield protector on over the top of the mylar? or instead of the mylar altogether?

you can put it on right over top of the mylar if you want. The protector does not use adhesive and is easily removable from the playfield. Some people hate the way games play on them. I've never noticed that much of a difference especially on machines that were mylar'd originially. I took the mylar off on mine, cleaned everything up, relevelled the inserts and put the new insert graphics on. Then the protector just lays on top. Had to remove the ramps and many plastics but that didn't take too long. You have to do that anyway if you are removing the mylar.

I bought mine from this guy. Service was awesome and the latest ones are really thin.
https://www.playfield-protectors.com/

basic question, but what color is the center beacon supposed to be (or I should say how did it come fro the factory)? Mine is yellow, but I see white/clear a lot.

I've only seen clear and white.

Is your yellow one truly yellow, or could it have yellowed due to age?

could have yellowed I supposed, but it does seem like the original color of mine is yellow

It should be clear, unless yellowed. Use whatever bulb you want. I went with a purple passion bulb from comet. I believe original was a bulb with a green plastic sleeve.

IMG_20200417_102911 (resized).jpg

I assumed he was talking about the center beacon on the backbox.

Did he mean the center insert in the playfield?

I seem to be having an intermittent issue with the pop bumper. It seems to work well when the ball comes at it with some force, but when it lightly touches the bumper, it doesn't respond. Some days it seems more responsive than others. Any thoughts on where to even begin looking? I plan to go through the tests, but the intermittent-ness of it has me thinking the tests aren't going to bring anything up.

Nope, topper beacon. I think it’s supposed to be white.

You probably just need to adjust the pop bumper switch under the playfield to make it more sensitive, and make sure the skirt pin is centered in the spoon. Everything you need to know is here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-rebuilding-pop-bumpers

Ah, well that makes much more sense. Mine is yellowed and not great. White ones look great. Avoid clear unless you want to be blind... Lol

The first games made were with a clear center beacon.....but as KSUWildcatFan says, while not blinding, is much brighter. What I had heard was that locations wanted it "toned down", so they switched to the translucent white.

I bought the remake white beacon that’s available and didn’t like it so switched to clear. The white isn’t as translucent as the blue and red so didn’t match IMO. My game also had the beacon wiring modified from parallel to series to reduce the brightness, but I’m a glutton for punishment so converted back.

Do the rectifier/LEDs mod and put on the shades.

For me, a large part of what makes me love F14 is the absurd light show and obnoxious sounds. I might go full on idiot mode with LED flashers someday, just because. I want to add in the ones that were factory deleted also... because.

My red and blue beacons are plenty salvageable with a quality buff job, but I don't think there's any proper saving the white one. It's too yellowed and the mounting base is chipped anyway. So I need to source a replacement... Someday.

I still need to fix my right lane and spinner (need to order more parts but I'm struggling figuring out a part I need for my meteor) and I need to finish up with the replacement of my target blades. Still have both sets of TOM to do as well as the 1-6 white center targets. But seeing as how every single damn stack I've disassembled has fallen apart in my hands and I've now lost several plastic tubes...I need replacements.

One step forward, 37 steps back.

Oh, random question freeplay40, since you're here... Ever given any thought about a clear diverter for F-14? I was talking to a friend about this the other day. Just curious!

I can help with this if you like.

Here's mine. I don't know the scale, but it's about 4".

IMG_20200503_112452 (resized).jpg

IMG_20200503_112501 (resized).jpg

Looks great. Love your stickers over the clear plastics. For whatever reason my upper left piece fit really poorly and kinda looks like crap because of that. Not sure why/how my piece is so messed up. All the other stickers fit perfectly.

I've seen links fly here and there but I haven't looked recently. Whatcha got?

A friend has a new white one he would sell.

Have him PM me a price? Shipping to 66605 if he needs it for a quote. First class would be fine if it's light enough.

I have an extra if you want it. Would be like $15 shipped.

Eye Candy

IMG_2749 (resized).JPG

IMG_2750 (resized).JPG

IMG_2970 (resized).JPG

I just got my stencils, im going to repaint my whole cabinet. I love what you have done with red on everything, but I think I am going to stay with stainless steel trim and chrome legs, chrome ramps. looks awesome. did you do LED lighting? and the playfield looks amazing. did you clean it, refinish, new mylar? I am considering what to do with mine, but I am not as experienced or have the time. I just want to play!

new pf, new plastics, everything rebuilt. LEDs except flashers

Just joined the club, going to start looking for parts. Need a translite if anyone has one, mine is horribly faded. Possibly cpr playfield, plastics etc. Still sorting through the game

20200514_135221 (resized).jpg

20200514_135233 (resized).jpg