Not sure about quality but Mayfair prices are much higher when buying at a show. They charged me $8 for a set of leg bolts that I forgot to bring for a game I brought for free play. I like PBR flipper parts, price and Q. the only thing I had trouble with are the black coil stops in the Bally linear kits. They seem to stick or magnetize. Pinball Life is also good and they have early Stern SS flipper kits at a decent price.

NO they are not all the same. PBR's are the ONLY ones worth buying.

I don't care if I'm doing an order elsewhere, I will still only order any flipper rebuilds solely from PBR. Much better quality.

I get most of my stuff from pinballlife, great prices and never had any issues.

The PBL pawls are complete garbage. They bend and break, and forget about having to loosen them to readjust.

Search Pinside on rebuilds, PBR is the only place to go, but hey, it's your machine.

This info is a bit old and only applies to WMS, but pinball news did a great write up about the "correct" parts for rebuild kits:
http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/flippers/index.html

Weird. I've probably rebuilt flippers on every pin I've owned and never had an issue with pinballlife's kits.

When I first got into pinball, I bought all my parts from PBL, as the bulk savings seemed great. I rebuilt hundreds of flippers, but had problems, as I mentioned with the pawls bending too easily, and plungers and stoppers wearing really fast. I just thought this is how they were made. I mean, you can use the PBL ones, but you have to be careful to not overtighten.

I ordered some from PBR for the first time once, and was surprised to see that all the little screws and washers, and everything else was included, and sets where cheaper. When tightening them, the pawls didn’t crumble when it got tight (I have had PBL ones do this before the shaft was even tight enough to not move in play). I got a HUO Popeye, and went to rebuilding the flippers, right away, as I always do. What I found was that the original Williams pawls were as strong as the PBR ones, and the plunger and stops looked new as well. I could take it apart, change the sleeves and bushings (another part NOT included in PBL rebuilds, but very important in the rebuild process), and the pawls were completely reusable, unlike the PBL parts.

After using PBR rebuilds, years after I have new to no visible wear on the plungers and stoppers, but on machines that still had the PBL parts, I have had to rebuild again.

This has been a consensus with many of us, and again, search pinside for threads. There is no comparison, and Steve Young will tell you how much pride he puts into making his parts and making them exactly to the standard the original ones were.

I always state that this isn’t a shot at PBL as a whole, and I order from them for other things, but not flipper rebuild parts at all. Even their sleeves seem to be slightly larger, and do not slide nicely into b/w flipper coils.

Again, you can use the PBL ones, but given the superior quality of the PBR ones, I don't know why you would. Flippers are the single most important aspect of play, and at PBR they are like $30 to rebuild two. No brainer for me.

I've had problems with the coil stops in the PBR Bally regular (non-linear) kits--they don't hold the flipper up when ball hits (you get that double bounce when the ball hits the flipper). I replaced them with non-kit ones from another vendor and it solved the problem. I don't know if they are still selling the bad ones in the kits -- this was a few years ago.

I kept the bad 'kit' ones for other coils. They work fine for non-flipper coils.

How can that be a problem of the stops? The stop stops the plunger, that's it. It has nothing to do with holding the flipper up. If they are forced down, that sounds like a coil issue or voltage problem.

That's not true. If the stop does not seat well, the hold is affected. There's something wrong with the PBR kit stops (unless they've fixed them by now). They don't hold the flipper as strong as the non-kit stops. It's not a coil issue. Maybe there is something different in the finish or design of the stop (causing it to not seat firmly to the plunger) or the alloy used in the stop.

On the left is a non-kit stop--these provide a good, firm flipper hold.

On the right is the kit stop that does not hold the flipper adequately against a ball drop. You'll notice the concentric ring on the right stop. This may be the source of the problem, the smaller surface area, results in a weak flipper hold. Or, maybe the outer ring is not level with the inner ring, causing a weak/uneven seat. Or it could be something completely different, but in use, these stops simply do not hold. If you push down on the flipper while in hold position, you can easily break the hold--whereas it is very difficult to break the hold with the stop on the left.

If you get these stops in a kit (right picture), I'd recommend you avoid using these stops for flippers. Save them for non-flipper coils.

coilstops.jpg

The one in Ken's pic on the right looks more like the original. I found some NOS and they work well. Even a decent used one will work better than that black one.

Who is PBR?

PBResource aka Pinball Resource

pbresource.com

One of the major (if not the major) pinball parts suppliers for pre-1990s games.

Doh! Couldn't come up with that. *facepalm*

PBR me ASAP

Your slingshots in a bally / stern game are a great place to rob a coil stop from. They are usually less beaten up than a flipper one and when you put the worn one into a slingshot, there is not a performance problem like in the flippers.

this does not make sense. flip the coil stops between sides without adjusting the EOS Switches. my money is that the problem stays on the same flipper.

-c

It makes sense from a physics standpoint, though.

<geek mode>
Magnetism follows the inverse square law. Basically, when there is a small decrease in surface area or increased distance between the two "magnets" (for example, a bad seat between the stop and plunger), there is a great reduction in magnetic field strength.
</geek mode>

In my machines, nothing else solved the issue. The problem was 100% due to the coil stops pictured on the right in my post above (the silver bracketed coil stop with the concentric circle on the stop would not provide adequate hold strength against a falling pinball).

I hope this does not happen to anyone else, and maybe it was something peculiar to my games, but I wanted to post the solution that worked for me, in case someone else has the same issue.

They are not magnetic together or against each other in any way though...

I'm still not following this. The coil's voltage making a electromagnet reacting with the plunger holds it in. I can't fathom how the stop could change the force of the plunger being sucked into the coil. I could see this resulting in a poor connection that causes wear, but affecting the hold...?

I've never ordered from PBR because of the way you buy stuff from them. Purely a convenience thing, but I also haven't heard until this thread that their rebuild kits are so much better, so I've not had a need to go the order then send check route.

I haven't rebuilt my Sorcerer yet so maybe I'll order from them next time to see if I can tell a difference. I've gone the fliptronic style flippers for all of my machines so far so I hope I can just order the 92-98 kit and be set. PBL has 2 kits, 92-93, and 93-98. Anyone know the difference between the two?

Email your order, get stuff without paying first, send an echeck (or even a paper check) within 5 days.

It ain't complex.

And you can always call Steve if you need some actin in your life.....

This one has the longer coil stops you want for Sorcerer

So if I ordered from PBR, I could ask for longer coil stops and be set?

I don't know how to do an echeck. I also don't have real checks, I use my debit card for most things. I'm not saying that it's not easy, but compared to throwing in an online shopping cart, hitting pay, and being done, it's more complicated than I've been willing try. If PBR has better quality parts, that's motivation enough to go through the extra hoops.

I'm in the PBR camp as far as flipper kits are concerned as well. They just seem of better quality, the pawls grip the flipper shaft better and very rarely have I had one go loose. And for what it's worth I never snapped one of PBR's allen head screws but I have broken several of the ones from PBL and Marco.
A little off subject but I also prefer Steve's ring kits over Marco. You don't get a roadmap but the rings are of high quality and always pretty accurate.

The only magnetic field generated is by the windings in the coil itself. You could replace the coil stop with wood, plastic, pubes, or a potato and your flipper will still work (for a while).

-c

Just get the 1993 kit.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-upgradingrebuilding-flippers

Same thing, all my rubbers come from Steve as well. I spent tons trying to find the proper red rubbers and white that acted like nos, and that's pbr. The red flipper rubbers from pbl wear at the tips in weeks.

It's simple IMO, if it has to do with a flipper part, anything, go to pbr. Pretty much any mech anything I check with him first. I blindly trust Steve with anything I need that he carries.

I get mine from the guy who made them for Williams originally

I know many others are made in china, and have had mixed results

So who is that?

If you replaced the stop with something non-ferrous, the flipper would fall easily once the coil has switched to low-current.

The coil induces magnetism in the plunger, and the coil stop. The magnetic attraction between the plunger and stop is what holds the flipper up in low current mode -- not the power of the coil. You have to remember, at this point, the flipper coil is running very low, holding current -- barely enough to pull the plunger into the coil, and not enough to hold it there firmly.

If you've ever had an EOS switch go bad, you'd see that the flipper can barely pull up against the force of the spring. If the plunger were resting against a plastic stop, you could easily pull it down with your hand. The low-current force of the coil is not enough to hold the plunger firmly inside the coil.

If you still don't understand, you can try an experiment for yourself. Push down on your flipper without changing anything. Then push down on it with a small piece of plastic separating the stop and the plunger. (disable your EOS if you do this experiment) You'll notice a big drop in holding force. The thicker the plastic, the less holding force you'll notice.

The stop and plunger are together when the flipper is up. You can visualize it as a bar magnet holding a chunk of metal. When you let go of the flipper button, its like you 'turned off' the bar magnet and the the chunk of metal falls away from the magnet.

In Chicago, I will let one of the ex Williams guys name them