amkoepfer CPR does make a mirrored backglass. If a hardtop came out for F-14, I'd go that route and sell my playfied. Here is a link to the thread about the playfields. You can contact him to see when he might rerun them.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/demand-check-f14-tom-cat/page/10#post-5557869

Cool, thanks!

If you end up buying new plastics please sell me the clear diverter cover (upper left)! Mine is somehow not the same size as everyone else's and the sticker set I bought didn't install worth a damn on that piece.

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I didnt realize there should be a sticker over it. I kind of like yours

I highly recommend the CPR backglass. Very nice in my opinion.

It's not an original piece. A guy in Canada makes them and sells them on eBay. ~$50 iirc. I do agree they look awesome. Just wish my plastic hadn't been so damn awful.

My cover isnt great, im debating just keeping it off. Thats what i did when i restored a high speed

Believe I have an extra one. If so, happy to send for the cost of postage. Will check tomorrow and let you know.

You don't have to let it go freeeeee, but I'd certainly appreciate being able to get my hands on one! A disgusting yellowed, but not warped, one would be absolutely perfect.

Mine was warped as all hell, I'm betting I shrunk the damn thing when I went to flatten it in my oven. That hadn't occurred to me until just now, but it makes sense. Self-inflicted pain, but I'm not sure it would have been useable for the sticker as it was before, anyway. Or at least, it probably would have looked like crap.

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that's looks beautiful, great job, do you mind me asking what color you powder coated the rails/legs and wire forms.
cheers

Is there a technique for flattening warped plastics in the oven? My diverter cover is slightly warped but it would be nice to flatten it down too.

Also, does anyone know what those little black plastic screw sleeve/clips are that attach to the plastic? I have several of them in my F-14 that are beat up, making it hard to remove them from the plastic. I'd like to replace them.

Oven, at a very low temp, is supposed to be the way. But I can't think of any other reason why my plastic would be so far off of the norm.

Or you can use a hair dryer.

Marco and Pinball Life sell the black plastic screw posts in various sizes, but need to be careful to match the different size. You may be able to search using the original Williams P/N’s from the game manual or Williams Part Catalog available on Planetary Pinball website.

Lot's of different ways to flatten plastic safely. I deal with a LOT of plastic. The key to not damaging them is to heat them slowly. A little heat....a little pause...a little heat...etc. The goal is to bring the whole plastic temperature up as evenly as possible. Once the plastic is warm enough it will lay flat easily. I have a glass top stove so generally do my flattening there. Once warm enough you just need to set something smooth on top of it and let it cool....like a piece of glass. I'd agree with @luckymoney. If at all nervous about doing this, use a hair dryer. A heat gun can get away from you. The plastic only needs to be about 140 degrees to be pliable. Just don't rush it.

Don't believe this guy, he doesn't know anything about plastic! KIIIIIDDDINGGGG. I 100% agree, take it slow and don't get rushed. Get it to juuuust the right spot where it's pliable and then let a weight do the rest.

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Before I source everything separately. Would anyone happen to have the whole center rotating assembly for sale?

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And... I'm down again. Not sure what happened. I was having a pretty good game and then the machine rebooted. When it came back up most of the solenoids are not working. Basically the only things working are the slings, pop bumper, shooter lane feeder, and drain feeder. Everything else like the rescue kick back, upper right kicker, diverters, all of the kick outs are not firing. I just hear a click when the solenoid is supposed to fire. The flashers are working as well as the backbox knocker and gi lights. Sure feels like a fuse but I don't see any that are blown.

Check the single fuse above the flipper power supply.

Thanks again Grumpy, I pulled the fuse and nothing else broke so that's a good sign. I wonder if the fuse holder is corroded and dead like that 4 port one was above it that I replaced a month or two ago. Going to replace that tomorrow. I think I have a few spare fuse holders left somewhere. The fuse checks out but it doesn't appear to be the correct one. It says 40v volt on it but I can't make out any other lettering.

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Best to replace both the holder and the fuse.

Is there a technique for flattening warped plastics in the oven? My diverter cover is slightly warped but it would be nice to flatten it down too.

Also, does anyone know what those little black plastic screw sleeve/clips are that attach to the plastic? I have several of them in my F-14 that are beat up, making it hard to remove them from the plastic. I'd like to replace them.</blockquote

I use a heat gun but im very slow and steady with it. Put it on a piece of glass and heat it slowly. Keep the heat gun moving at all times back and forth and not too close to the plastic. If You do it right, you will see the plastic start to lift up and you will think that you are totally messing it up but keep going. It will lift, but then relax flat. Once that happens, let it cool a bit and then put another piece of glass on top and weigh it down until it cools and your good.
You can get the black standoffs from Marco . Just make sure you get the correct height.
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8022-1

Is there a technique for flattening warped plastics in the oven? My diverter cover is slightly warped but it would be nice to flatten it down too.

Not sure why my last post didnt add my response but anyways...
Put the plastic on a piece of glass and slowly heat with a heat gun. Go slow and you will see the plastic start to lift up and you will think that you are messing it up but keep going as it will then relax flat. Keep the heat gun moving at all times and once its flat, let it cool at bit and then put another piece of glass on top with a bit of weight until it cools.
The standoffs you are looking or can be bought at Marcos . Just make sure you get the right height.
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-8022-1

ok, i give up, i tried responding twice but its only showing the quote and not the response. Not sure why .

I have the proper fuse in my kit so will get both replaced today. Keeping fingers crossed that is all that is needed

https://www.tiltedpinball.com/tilted-pinball-shop/f-14-beacon/

That's what happens when your gone for 2 weeks.

Thanks for the tips on flattening the plastic everyone! I'll check out Marcos and/or Pinball Life for the clips as well. My F-14 is definitely "player condition" but she's my baby so I like doing little things here and there to spruce her up.

The Blue Chevon playfield plastics up the right side are usually pretty washed out colorwise….Blue LED's really make them nice!

I went with ice blue LEDs for arrows and translucent light blue standup targets which I really like but every time I see a super vivid dark blue setup I wonder if I made the right call

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Your soo right ! lol

You got it fixed!

Hello fellow F-14 Tomcat owners!

I recently acquired this game, as one of five machines that grace my game room.

I have questions about F-14, and was delighted to find that a F-14 Tomcat club exists here on Pinside. I’d certainly like to join, as I’m discovering that F-14 is a really great game!

The first thing that I’d like to understand about F-14 is what turns on Flight Insurance. I seem to get this advantage quite often, but have no idea what triggers it.

Any help anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Kim

Flight insurance is basically given if you're having a shit game.i almost never get it my wife sees it fairly often.

Nice answer dude. Lots of help.

The Flight insurance light comes on for a few seconds any time you shoot the left lane into the General Yagov kicker. It just gives you a shoot again if the you can't save the ball when it gets kicked back at you.

Many sys 11 games give you a consolation extra ball on ball 3 if your score/ball time is pretty low. Tomcat gives you flight insurance on ball 3 if your score is low but it only lasts a short time. It's also active just for a moment after hitting the Jagov kicker.

I didn't have a chance to work on the machine last night. Hope to do that at some point today but I did take a good look around and found a few interesting modifications by whoever had this machine before me. The most interesting is the resistor board. I'll be picking up the proper resistors for it for sure. There is also an interesting mod to one of the snubber boards. As well as this bypassed fuse. I found a lot of fuses like this and thought I had replaced them all. The other slow blo on the playfield also appears to not be correct but I will need to pick up a few more of those as I am out. Most of the fuse kits don't include the playfield ones. I'm sure there are many more field fixes on this thing I have not found yet.

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That's what I was going for. Going with yellow translucent for 1-6 and red translucent for TOM.. And you can see the purple translucent up front.

Since I'm going through things I wanted to check on the power supply. Does this look right to you all? I believe this machine was in France at some point so was likely converted from 220. There are several wires that are cut on the harness that goes to the on/off switch and the leads are soldered together. I've gone through Vid's guide a few times on power supplies and never saw anything like this.

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I replaced the fuse holder and put the correct 2.5 amp fuse in. I also replaced the 2.5 amp fuse in the cab that had a wire soldered to it. The other fuse in the cab is a 3 amp slow blo fuse and will be ordering a few more 2.5's to replace that and have more on hand. It did not fix the issue though. I hear what sounds like the relay clicks. Here is a video going through the tests of what I am seeing.

Do you plan on putting led flashers bulbs in ? If so, some of those resistors wont be needed anyways.

I've swapped everything but the flashers out for led. I was not planning on doing the flasher conversion as I like the look now. I have the proper resistors on order from Marco and some 150ohm 2w fireproof resistors from digikey to fix up all the snubbers. I think a few of them look burned but I'm not sure any of that explains why the solenoids are not firing

Looking around for blown fuses I found the 4a slo blow on the flipper power supply board is blowing. I replaced the 2 1/2a slo blow that was in there with the proper 4a one and it blew right away. I guess I have a coil or something that is shorted?

IMG_20200519_212129083 (resized).jpg

Most likely the bridge rectifier is bad.

Which bridge rectifier am I looking for? Is it one of these guys? I added fuses on those as per vids guide. How do you test these?

IMG_20200519_220733598 (resized).jpg

Nope, this one.

Disconnect the output connector. Replace the fuse with any size fuse under 5 amp just for a test. Power up the game and see if the fuse still blows. If it blows replace the bridge rectifier.

az (resized).jpg

ok, yeah I just replaced it with a 4amp slowblow and it is dead.

For giggles I checked the two rectifiers nearby and those are both reading around 488-487 both positive and negative on the ac tabs if I followed that youtube video correctly

Looks like I'm needing one of these for the power board
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/KBPC3504-W

and it appears to be recommended that the cap also be replaced. This is what looks to be on it now
https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/C100M250VA

With the shipping and a couple of 4 amp slo blow fuses I'm at $30 from Marco. I wonder if just going this route would be a better use of the money?

http://pinballpcb.com/products/system-9-11-flipper-power-supply/

With shipping it's only $4 more

Great plains is cheaper, also shipping is less too.

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=CEA-100uF-250V-VX

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=GBPC3504W

https://www.greatplainselectronics.com/proddetail.asp?prod=3AG-T-2-1%2F2

I've never ordered from them before. Thanks for the links! I checked mouser as well and great plains is cheaper. As always thank you. After all of the help you have given I feel like I owe you a bunch of beers or something.