I know there are alot of these post, but I am happy to say that I can finally join the EM club as I officially own a pinball Machine. A 1970 Williams Gay 90's, the local Habitat for Humanity Re-sell store had it for $300, listed as broken, but was less that 5 minutes from my house so I jumped on it. When I got there the guy said that they had never plugged it up (and showed me a very badly spliced power cord) and said that there were no fuses in the machine, but he had new ones in a bag and they were good to go.

So we loaded it up and headed home, and after an eventful journey up a flight of stairs, my first pinball machine was in my living room. I opened it up and it really didnt look that bad, actually I was surprised at how clean it was. I fixed the power cord, plugged in the fuses, and hit the power switch...nada. I had expected that really, and than I reached over and held the left flipper and suddenly it sprang to life. Lights came on, all scores were already at 0, and credit were already added so I pressed the start button and it shot the ball into the shooter lane much to my chagrin, plunged and was surprised as most of it worked, the scores were adding properly, the bells were working, and the flippers worked moderately.

The machine literally looks like it was taken off route and put away and than it was sold to me, of course the game is a little rough in spots. The PF is worn to the wood in spots, and one side of the cabinet is scratched up pretty bad, some lights do not work, and initially the score reels woulds stick but that has seemed to have worked itself out. The flippers are in horrible shape as they look as if they haven't been messed with since the 70's so all the linkages are very loose and they are very weak.

The one major problem I have right now is the Coin Stepper Unit will not reset off of four players at all. I can reset it to one player and it will stay one player until someone adds a second or third player and than it will stay at that number of players. The wheel moves fairly freely but when I push the reset coil down it doesn't snap back to any preset place, and sometimes doesn't move at all.

We all start somewhere I guess, pics to come later.

Thank you everyone! I ordered a flipper rebuild kit, new pinball's, replacement lights, new shooter rod springs and tips, and new flipper rubbers. I can barley contain my excitement.

The layout is much more fun than I assumed really, it has every ball-saver an EM can have basically, we have a left outlane kick-back, a middle up-post and a right outlane gate, so opening all three (which all worked once I reattached the springs) allows for some seriously fun action.

Pics
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All these responses are the reason I love this site and community, thanks guys, just cant wait to get it up and running correctly. Everyones invited to come play anytime once its finished, and the wife's first response after playing the machine for the first time was "So, when are we getting another one?" I am a lucky man.

LOL, Thanks for the laugh and he is certainly correct. The flipper assembly's have serious amounts of play, cracked bushings (I think thats what they are) and the sleeves didnt look the very good at all. The good news is my package is in Huntington, and will be at my house tonight so I will be jumping into my first rebuilding of the flippers tomorrow.

One question, does anyone know where I can get replacement passive bumper rubbers? It was sold to me with brand new Marco's rubbers but the two passive bumper rubbers are dry-rotted and provide no bounce. Thanks again everyone!

Love how my thread sparked some great EM conversation! Got the left side flipper rebuilt tonight as it was the one that needed it the worse. It was a learning experience therefor it took me three hours, but it was done as correctly (I hope.) I used Vid's guide to rebuilding flippers and it helped tremendously, but I am pretty sure my EoS switch is mis-adjusted as I now get a buzz (60 cycle hum im guessing) when I activate to flipper, but if im holding the flipper up and the ball lands on the flipper I get a very loud hum as if the high power is locked on, is this a sign of a wrongly adjusted EoS switch?

Other than that it is coming along nicely and has turned into a family project as my dad has helped with the rebuild, my wife changed every bulb for me, my mother helped Novus and wax, and my nieces and nephews play tested it for me, so it has already payed for itself in entertainment for my family.

One more question, and this is a shot in the dark, but does anyone have any idea where I could get the extra ball relay? Im guessing this would be like finding the holy grail but never hurts to ask.

I'll post some more pics in a few days and who knows, maybe a video as well.

The reason for asking for the Extra-Ball relay is this game had an "optional" relay that was sent to operators that requested it and was not shipped as stock with the game. So it has a spot for the relay, and notes on how to hook it up, it just it missing the relay itself, and I just thought an add-a-ball game would be nice to have since its Free-play. Doesn't effect anything really, just kinda would like to have one.

As for safety, its one of the things we preach in this house, especially around electrical. My father was a HVAC tech for 20+ years so he is very careful because he knows the dangers. Last night he was making sure I knew how to use a Multi-Meter correctly, and how to read what it was telling me and what the dangers are working around anything electrical. We take the "better safe than sorry" approach to about everything, and this is no exception.

Tonight I will be doing the right side flipper rebuild, and than tomorrow I will probably start to tackle the stepper unit the refuses to reset. It will advance just fine, and the gear isn't seized, it just will not reset, the reset kicks and the wheel just sits there so I am assuming its the spring. A little at a time as it goes, but this is what I do to unwind from the day so a little goes a long way for me.

Edit: My English sucks

Thank you JR for you offer to help, I really do appreciate it.

So more work was done last night as we went ahead and tore down the right flipper and did a full replacement on it, this one didn't take three hours, but we kinda had an idea of where we were going as well. The game now has supper snappy flippers and tons of power, its a significant improvement and does play like a completely different game now. The stepper unit still it sticking, but we rewound the spring so now it actually will step back a single player at a time on its own, so improvement but not fixed.

I know I ask for a lot of help, but I do have an issue that I cannot seem to resolve. The kickout saucer ALWAYS kicks the ball into the glass, and makes me cringe every single time it does it. I have tried adjusting the metal kickout left and right but it still launches the ball into the glass. I am starting to suspect the wood around the saucer is worn itself into a ramp, but I am not sure how to go about fixing it. Any advice would be appreciated.

The eastky one is the one currently in my possession so its gone, but I will keep you in mind for sure. You never know when I might need to make room for something else, but as for now my family would kill me if I got rid of it.

I checked the transformer and it is set to normal (24v) and not on the high tap lug, so thats out of the question. Would it be recommended to put a resistor of some sort to lower to volts to the coil? Luckily this has now went from happening all the time to happening only 50% of the time now, so I will continue looking for solutions, as for now I am going to try the foam to see if that will work. If not I think I will try some clear enamel around the kickout hole. Thanks for the tip.

You know, I have no idea, but it would make sense. Will check in just a little while and report back (YAY for days off!!!)

Pop bumper rebuild is next on my list of things to do, but until then I was going to go ahead and change out all the sleeves to nylon sleeves for the Pop's and the slings. This machine as far as I could tell only had two changes made to it since the 70's and that was a new drop target coil, and a new flipper bat, the rest was left untouched as far as I could tell so a rebuild is for sure in order. This is the rebuild that kinda scares me, as I have read the guides and it does seem a lot more complex than a flipper rebuild, I really wish someone did a Pop rebuild kit like the flipper ones so I could just order that without wondering if I forgot something.

As for putting into high tap, me and my dad went ahead and read the voltage of the high tap line just to see how much voltage it would be running through the machine, as I had read that it would add 1 to 2 volts to the coils, upon using the DMM it had an output of 32 volts, so 8 volts above regular voltage, I am not sure if this is normal or not so we are gonna stick to 24v as the new flipper rebuild already adds a lot of pop to the game.

Other news: The kickout hole seems to be doing better with the foam tape for now, still need to check and make sure the right solenoid is in there but we move closer and closer to having a full working 1970's Williams. And I have now started working on the lights that are not working. I have replaced every bulb and we still have some that show no signs of life. We checked to make sure we had 6v (true) going to the lights, and every light does have voltage, so I am assuming that the socket itself is the problem. Time to get get under the hood and do some work.

And I forgot to mention...This game is really really good, I was not expecting it to be as drainy as it is because of the three ball saves, but those and usually used in quick order and it takes a bit of luck getting them back open. There is an orbit shot that just makes me smile when I hit it, and even though it only scores 5 points it still looks cool as it banks around like a cue ball and lands on the opposite flipper, the game is just simply fun (and brutal.)

Finally got around to recording a couple games on my machine for anyone that would like to watch.

So I have encountered a problem, and have been trying to fix it for a week now to now avail. Whenever I hit the outhole, or the kicker hole it should add 50 points to my score (5x ticks of the 10 point reel) recently it has started only adding 40 points instead, this happens 90% of the time, and is very noticeable when you work up to 500 points on the kicker, hit it and only get 400 points because it scores in 50 point intervals.

I have checked most the switches related to the kicker except for the score motor, so that would be my next step, but if anyone has an idea of what it is please let me know.