One thing to check for, is bent brackets. This can change the amount of play a flipper has... sometimes people will compensate for worn coil stops, by bending the brackets!

This is the difference between the two rebuild kits:

Games made from 02/1992 to 04/1993 have longer flipper travel:

Getaway
Addams Family
Black Rose
Docter Who
Fish Tales
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Whitewater
BS Dracula
Twilight Zone

=========================================================

Games made from 08/1993 to 10/1998 have shorter flipper travel:

Indiana Jones
Judge Dredd
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Demolition Man
Popeye Save the Earth
World Cup Soccer
The Flintstones
Corvette
Road Show
the addams family gold
The Shadow
Dirty Harry
Theatre of Magic
No Fear
Indianapolis 500
Johnny Mnemonic
WHO dunnit
Jackbot
Congo
Attack from Mars
Safecracker
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Scared Stiff
junkyard
NBA Fastbreak
Medieval Madness
Cirqus Voltaire
No Good Gofers
Champion Pub
Monster Bash
Cactus Canyon

If you have the wrong kit, there is nothing wrong with bending the return bracket to give the full flipper travel.

OPs used to do it all the time.

Read this.

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/flippers/index4.html

It talks about all the different coil stop sizes, different parts, etc, in the kits.

EDIT: and this...

http://www.pinballnews.com/learn/flippers/index5.html

I'd say that since the games had different amounts of travel, and everyone uses the same rebuild kit anyway, then flipper travel comes down to a matter of personal taste, and just making your machines play nice.

I've wondered this also. Interesting to see that list of pins with different travel length Vid!

I prefer the shorter travel. It's harder to trap the ball but I like the challenge, and it suits better for passing and cradle separations etc. I also feel like the shorter travel gives you better fidelity for aiming. Longer travel is friendlier for newbies for trapping and outside shots don't have to be made uncomfortably late.

I'm sure they use the correct flipper mech for the game.

As for the bats themselves, just set them up using the official Williams flipper gap tool, and tighten the bat so that it is perfectly inline with the ball guide (or use the little alignment holes in the playfield).

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

What makes you sure of that? MHS/PAPA don't seem to care much about adhering to original specs when setting up their tournament games. Some tournaments use the later style coil stops (shorter travel) on all of their tournament games in order to make them a little harder. I wouldn't be surprised if PAPA did.

I do this occasionally with location games if I feel like they're playing a little too easy. It doesn't really make the games harder for noobs, who tend to swat the ball away anyway, but it does make them a little trickier for the pros who are always looking to trap the ball.

Gozzle: AFM has shorter travel by design, but if you want it to be a little longer why not just use old-style coil stops? Bending the brackets is a little ghetto, and it might confuse or cause problems for the next owner if you ever sell the game.

I just bought my first pinball last week. I noticed that the travel on my flippers differed from each other. Looking closely, they are different mechanisms. I believe the right flipper was changed fairly recently. It has an extra arm (a spring tab) on it to connect with a new type of spring, though it still has a wrap-around spring installed.

I think the difference in the travel is caused by how far the plunger can travel into the solenoid. I notice that the fiber/plastic linkage on the two are different. The old (left) one is trimmed (notched) in such a way that when activated, the linkage actually can fit partly into the solenoid channel, whereas the newer linkage stops when hitting the front of the solenoid.

Both cases seem wrong because I can't imagine it making sense to have the linkage be the stop mechanism. I would think that would break something after a while.

One other thing I notice, is that when my right flipper is activated, if the ball drops and lands on the end of the flipper, it sort of bounces it back up. I think the ball hitting it is breaking the end-of-travel switch, then more current is going to the flipper, and bouncing the ball back up a tiny amount.

In any case, I actually mis-adjusted my right flipper so i'm able to trap the ball. Otherwise it would roll off down the drain.

What game? I'm assuming its older since it has a spring over coil design. There is nothing wrong with the newer sidespring design, many people convert the older style to the new style.

I contacted Terry at Pinballlife, and he informed me the only difference in the two kits was the coil stop. The early one is shorter than the late one giving it more travel. But I have been using the later kits, and it seems the link comes pretty close to the coil bracket already, and I can't see how if the coil stop was shorter the link wouldn't actually hit the coil bracket.

So I'm using the later coil stop and bending the other stop bracket to adjust travel.

I switched the coil stops on my DW to the thicker ones giving the flippers less travel. It has made the Hang On (W) shot more difficult because it's later, but shots up the middle to the time expander are easier as there seems to be more range for aiming up the middle.

I can't shake the feeling that it's not a stock configuration though and that it's a bad thing. I might revert back.

Games made from 02/1992 to 04/1993 have longer flipper travel:

Getaway
Addams Family
Black Rose
Docter Who
Fish Tales
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Whitewater
BS Dracula
Twilight Zone

=========================================================

Games made from 08/1993 to 10/1998 have shorter flipper travel:

Indiana Jones
Judge Dredd
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Demolition Man
Popeye Save the Earth
World Cup Soccer
The Flintstones
Corvette
Road Show
the addams family gold
The Shadow
Dirty Harry
Theatre of Magic
No Fear
Indianapolis 500
Johnny Mnemonic
WHO dunnit
Jackbot
Congo
Attack from Mars
Safecracker
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Scared Stiff
junkyard
NBA Fastbreak
Medieval Madness
Cirqus Voltaire
No Good Gofers
Champion Pub
Monster Bash
Cactus Canyon

1980 Williams Blackout

Some hack just threw together anything he had to fix the flipper.

Rebuild both sides with the newer springs that hang off the side tabs, new stops, new plungers and links. Your game will play better than new.

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

I noticed at PAPA how short the flipper travel was on many pins. My collection is mostly early 1980's Bally pins and I am used to long flipper travel. I would guess they have a huge box of coil stops that are all long, many of the early pins that I would have expected to have a longer flipper travel did not, at least that is my memory. (Though hard to bitch much about the short flipper travel. Every pin I played still had strong, working flippers. After going to many events where a large number of the pins either had weak or broken flippers, short flipper travel is not that big of deal)

Has anyone noticed if you bend the flipper bracket like the OP did, does this hurt the flippers power in a noticeable way? I would guess the plunger not being in the coil as much would reduce the power of the flipper, but perhaps not to any noticeable level.

To solve this, I used a sharp utility knife and carved away a notch on both sides of the plastic linkage. I did this until the plunger could be sunk until it hit the stop, rather than stopping when the linkage slammed into the solenoid. This also saved the spring from being crushed in the process.

After doing this, and finding it to resolve my problem, I found this link on the Action Pinball site, which describes the same process. http://www.actionpinball.com/tech/wms_flipkit.htm

Scroll about halfway down, under the section titled "Modifications"

flipper.jpg

That's a great idea. I've just encountered this issue after rebuilding my Dr Dude flippers. Just as you described, the linkage crushes the spring against the coil bracket/sleeve.